Pumpkins in Paradise (Tj Jensen Paradise Lake Mystery Book 1) (11 page)

“Tj,” Ashley said as she buckled Gracie into her car seat.

“Yes, honey?”

“Do you think we can get some paint for my room?”

Tj held her breath as her heart skipped a beat. “Sure, honey. I think Chase Hardware is still open. We can get it now, if you want.”

“Okay,” Ashley agreed as she buckled herself into her seat belt.

Tj forced herself not to shout for joy as she pulled slowly onto Main Street. After the accident, she’d decided to have the badly damaged body of her mom cremated, which Tj later realized had been a huge mistake, her first of many. When she broke it to the girls that their mom was dead, Gracie had been sad but accepting, but Ashley had steadfastly refused to believe that her mother was never coming home. She was certain there had been some huge mistake and it had been someone else’s mom who had died.

When Tj brought the girls to the resort to live, she’d wanted to redecorate the male-dominated guestrooms right away
. Gracie had been more than willing to let Tj replace the dark wood paneling in her room with light colors and stuffed animals in a Noah’s Ark theme, but Ashley had insisted that there was no reason to redecorate her room since her mom was coming to get her any day. Tj had tried many times over the first few weeks to get Ashley to allow her to redecorate, but eventually she’d taken her dad’s counsel to let her come around to it in her own time.

“What did you have in mind?” Tj asked as she pulled into the parking lot of the family-operated store.

“Well,” Ashley began, “Kristi has pink and white in her room and I really like it, but then I thought I’d do something a little more unik.”

“You mean unique?”

“Yeah. I want something different. I like the green wall. I guess we could replace all that wood and hunting stuff with something that has purple in it.”

“Purple and green
. I like it.”

Tj helped the girls out of the car before grabbing a red shopping cart and entering the store through the double-wide doors
. “Dylan,” she said as she almost ran into the man, who was just leaving the store with his own cart.

“Tj
. What brings you here?”

“These are my sisters, Ashley and Gracie
. This is Deputy Caine,” Tj said, introducing the girls. “We’re here to buy paint and wallpaper for Ashley’s room.”

“
You painting your room too?” Gracie asked, noticing that his basket was full of paint cans and paintbrushes.

“Actually, a whole house
. I just bought the Montgomery place,” he explained to Tj.

“Really
? That place is huge. And a total wreck,” she added. “But huge. It must have ten bedrooms. I think you’re going to need more paint.”

“I know the place needs a little work,” Dylan defended.

Tj raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, a lot of work. But the location can’t be beat
. A huge piece of property right on the lakeshore in Aspen Cove, with plenty of room for Kiva to run to her heart’s content.”

“Kiva?”

“My Husky. I’m afraid the old girl is getting tired of hotel living. Not only did Mr. Montgomery give me a killer deal on the property but he’s going to let us move in right away.”

“You have any kids?
” Gracie asked.

“No, it’s just me and Kiva.”

“Oh,” Gracie sighed.

“You sound disappointed.”

“Me and Ashley are the two newest kids in school. If you had kids, we wouldn’t be the newest anymore.”

Dylan couldn’t help but smile as the adorable little girl pouted over her misfortune.

“Can you keep a secret?” he asked her.

“Sure.
” Gracie leaned in close as Dylan knelt down to her height.

“I was just at the video store on Fifth Street, buying a game for my nephew Justin’s birthday
. The woman who helped me told me the owners were retiring and the new family who bought the place will be moving in next month. I heard they have three kids who I think must be around your age.”

“I’m five and Ashley is eight,” Gracie volunteered.
“Seems about right.”

Gracie’s face lit up like a hundred-watt bulb.

It was common knowledge that the Connelly’s had sold the store and were moving, but it was sweet the way Dylan made Gracie feel special by sharing a secret with her.

“So what color are you going to paint your room?
” Dylan turned his attention to Ashley.

“Purple and green.”

“Purple and green; bold. I like it. Are you thinking curtains or blinds? Because personally, I’m torn.”

“Both,” Ashley decided
. “Blinds to keep the sun out and curtains for decoration. Maybe those short ones that sort of drape around the window.”

“Swag,” Tj supplied.

“Yeah, those.”

“You seem to have an eye for design,” Dylan complimented her
. “Maybe I should have you out to the house to give me some suggestions once I get the heavy work done.”

“’Kay.
” Ashley tried to seem nonchalant, but Tj could tell she was about to burst at the seams with pride that the handsome deputy wanted her opinion.

In the three minutes they’d been in the s
tore Dylan had managed to charm her sisters, who, she assumed, were both a little in love with him by this point. Heck, she was a little in love with him herself. Handsome, good job, dog lover, and liked kids…

“I wanted to talk to you some more about the matter we discussed yesterday.” Tj was purposely vague in front of the girls
. “Will you be in your office tomorrow, around noon?”

“Actually, I’m having lunch with Mayor Wallaby,” Dylan informed her, “but I should be free in the afternoon if you can stop by then.”

“The girls have dance after school, so I can drop them off and stop by at around three.”

Dylan took out his phone and consulted his calendar
. “I have an appointment at three. Can you make it four?”

“That should work fine.”

“Okay, I’ll see you then.” Dylan waved as he walked toward the front door.

“Okay, where should we start?
” Tj turned to Ashley as Dylan left the store.

“Wallpaper,” Ashley decided.

“I think the books are in the back, near the contractor’s counter.” Tj turned and headed down a narrow aisle.

“We’ll have to order it?
” Ashley was clearly disappointed.

“Probably,” Tj said, “although Mr. Chase usually keeps a few prints in stock
. Maybe we’ll luck out and he’ll have something you like.”

“Evening, Tj; girls
. What can I help you with?”

“Wallpaper,” Ashley answered.

“I can order you anything in any of those books.” He nodded toward the table. “And I have these prints in stock.” He handed Tj a binder with samples.

“How long will it take to get the paper if we order it?” Tj asked after handing the sample binder to Ashley.

“It depends on the manufacturer. I’ve got a list here somewhere.” Mr. Chase started rummaging around in a drawer when the phone rang. “Chase Hardware,” he said.

Tj waited while the man talked to someone on the other end
. The store hadn’t changed a bit since she used to come in as a child. Faded gray linoleum covered the floor. An old coffeepot sat half empty on the long pine counter that extended the full length of the back wall. Narrow aisles were packed with as much inventory as the little store could possibly hold.

“You know I want to bid the project,” Tj heard him say, “but we both know I don’t have the kind of capital it’d take to front the inventory
. I’d need a substantial deposit for a job of that size.”

Tj watched as Mr. Chase frantically took notes on a dirty yellow legal pad
. “I realize that the bigger stores off the mountain wouldn’t need such a big deposit, but you know I’ll give you better service than you’ll get from one of those warehouses,” the man responded.

“Yeah, I can be there
. Just let me know when.” Tj wandered over to look at paint samples while Mr. Chase finished his conversation.

“Sorry about that,” the man said as he walked up behind her a few minutes later
. “Kurt Brown got the contract to build those condos Lloyd Benson is developing down by the lake. He’s soliciting bids for suppliers and subcontractors.”

“Already?”
Tj asked. “The council hasn’t even voted on it yet.”

“Kurt said it’s all but a done deal
. Lucky thing too. Before this job came along, Kurt was talking bankruptcy. Took a bath on that project he built last year up at Angel Mountain. Guess he wants to hit the ground running once the council votes so he can pay off the loan he had to take against his house. Be a shame to lose the place. It’s a real beaut.”

Tj frowned
. “Did Kurt say when Lloyd hired him?”

“Didn’t say, but I
gathered it was at least a few weeks ago. Sounded like he’d already done quite a bit of the ground work. Mentioned he almost lost the project after putting in a good deal of time and quite a bit of his own money working up a bid. He seemed real happy the project was back on track.”

“Did he mention why he almost lost the project?”

“Somethin’ to do with a problem with the access. I guess Lloyd got that all cleared up. About the paint—I’m running a special on the store brand. I can mix you up any color you want.”

After spending over an hour in the hardware store, Ashley finally settled on light lavender paint and wallpaper with small flowers in a darker shade of purple with dark green leaves on a cream-colored background that Mr. Chase had in stock. The dark brown carpeting in the room was definitely going to have to go, so Tj ordered burgers to be brought over from the Grill while the entire family got to work moving furniture, pulling up old carpet, and stripping walls.

In any other circumstance Tj might have waited until the weekend to begin the project, but after weeks of hoping the fragile little girl would accept the changes in her life and begin to rebuild. Tj didn’t want to give her the opportunity to change her mind
. Her dad had been right when he’d counseled her to let Ashley set the pace of her grieving process. Just a few short weeks ago Ashley wouldn’t have welcomed the fresh paint and new carpet, but as they worked side by side, debating the merits of bunk beds versus full, Tj felt for the first time that Ashley had finally come home.

It was after nine o’clock before Tj decided they’d best call it a night. Ben retired to the den to watch an old movie while Mike went to check on Shasta. Tj supervised showers and got the girls off to bed in Gracie’s room. After everyone was settled, Tj made some herbal tea and settled into the living room with Echo and Cuervo.

The phone call she’d overheard Mr. Chase having with Kurt Brown had been bugging her all night
. It sounded like Lloyd Benson wasn’t the only one who had something to gain by Zachary’s death. If Kurt was as hard up for money as Mr. Chase indicated and the project that would bail him out was threatened, could he have drugged Zachary to get the project back on track? Maybe she’d mention Kurt and his involvement in Lloyd’s project when she met with Dylan the next day.

She thought of the handsome deputy
. He’d been so good with the girls. He wasn’t really her type, or at least she was working very hard to convince herself that he wasn’t, since her life was complicated enough without adding an unobtainable crush to the mix, but she couldn’t help but think about the dimple in the corner of his mouth and the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled.

She should be exhausted, but somehow she felt oddly energized
. It had been a long, emotional day. She’d been thinking a lot about Zachary and how little she really knew about him. It made her feel bad that she hadn’t tried harder. She wondered how one could spend several hours every week with another person and not know the first thing about his life. Especially, Tj realized, someone with her natural tendency to get involved in the intimate details of
everyone’s
life. Maybe in the end he’d wanted to reach out to her, but she’d been so involved in her own life that she’d never given him the chance.

Tj realized she was exhausted, physically, emotionally, and mentally
. She’d all but decided to head up to bed when her dad called to tell her that Shasta was in labor and he could really use her help. It looked like it was going to be a late night after all.

“Hey, Coach, you wanted to see me?” Brittany Baxter popped her head into Tj’s office the next morning.

“Come on in and have a seat.” Tj yawned.

Brittany hesitated
. Every available surface, including the chair in front of the desk, was piled high with file folders.

“Sorry.
” Tj got up from behind the desk and cleared the chair, setting the files on top of the cabinet. “I’ve been working on the grant for the new gym and the paperwork has been a lot more demanding than I’d anticipated. I asked you to stop by to see how things are going,” Tj continued. “At home, that is.”

Brittany, a senior and the captain of the ski team, had a good chance of getting a full-ride scholarship to the college of her choice with another winning season
. There was even talk that she had a shot at the national team, possibly even the Olympics. It would be a shame if this thing with her parents messed it up for her.

Brittany shrugged
. “They’re goin’. Guess you could even say things are looking up, if you count a total refusal of my parents to speak to one another as better than constant yelling.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Worse. They keep telling me to tell the other one stuff. ‘Brittany, tell your mother to pass the salt.’ ‘Brittany, tell your father to get it himself.’ So over it.”

“Your parents are both living in the house?”

“Crazy, huh? Both want the other to leave and neither is willing to budge. They fight over everything. At first I was really upset that my parents wanted me to leave while they worked through the divorce, but now I can’t wait to split. There are days when I don’t care if I ever see either of them again.”

Tj leaned forward, crossing her arms on the small space she’d cleared on her desk
. “I know it’s hard, but I’m sure they both really care about you.”

“As if,” Brittany snorted
. “They barely remember I exist.” Brittany started to cry. “This is my last year before college. I thought senior year would be the best year of my life, but instead it totally sucks. Mom won’t let me go out with my friends, and she’s been awful to Darien.” Brittany referred to her boyfriend. “He won’t even hang out anymore. I’ll probably lose my college scholarship if I have to change schools, and my parents are spending so much money on expensive attorneys from off the mountain, trying to one-up one another that they won’t have any of my college fund left to foot the bill. It’s not fair.”

“No,” Tj agreed, “it’s not.
” She handed Brittany a tissue. “If there’s anything I can do, just let me know.”

“Thanks.
” Brittany blew her nose. “I think I’m going to crash with Jilli. Her mom said it was cool. I really need to focus, and there’s no way I can do that with all the yelling. If I do well at nationals this year, I have a real shot at making the national team now that Kelsey Wagner is out because she screwed up her knee. It’s weird, I guess, but just being around Jilli gives me perspective, if you know what I mean.”

Tj did know
. Jilli’s dad had been killed in a skiing accident the winter before, and Tj imagined that no matter how much Brittany hated what her parents were doing and how much it was disrupting her life, at least they were still around to drive her crazy. Tj felt the same way about her own mother. When she was alive she’d driven her crazy with her flighty, irresponsible ways, but now that she was dead she actually missed the late-night phone calls asking for money for rent because some guy she was shacking up with had taken off with what little she had.

“Sorry to interrupt, Coach Jensen, but you have a visitor,” Jane Tucker, the second-period student office worker, said, sticking her head in the door
. “Your phone’s off the hook or I would have buzzed you.”

Tj glanced down at her desk to see the stack of paperwork that had knocked the receiver off the phone cradle
. The grant she was in charge of writing was kicking her butt more than she wanted to admit. “Do you know who it is?”

Jane shrugged
. “Some old guy.”

“Give me a couple of minutes,
then show him in.”

Tj looked at her watch,
then turned to Brittany. “I’ll probably be a few minutes late to class. I planned to have the girls do a weight circuit today. The workout logs are on the top of that pile over there.” Tj pointed to a pile near the door. “Go ahead and take them and have the girls start stretching. I should be there in a few.”

“Okay.”

After Brittany left Tj tried to straighten her desk to the point where she could actually see over the stacks of paper. Other than the small space directly in front of her, the entire surface was piled high with blueprints, community testimonials, and financial projections for the new gym.

“Tj Jensen?” A tall man with silver hair who looked to be in his sixties asked as he poked his head into the office.

“Come on in and have a seat.” She motioned to the chair Brittany had recently vacated.

“My name is Trent Jackson.
” He smiled as he folded himself into the small chair. “I spoke to a woman by the name of Helen Henderson who works at The Antiquery who told me you were friends with Zachary Collins.”

“Yes, we were friends
. Did you know him?”

“No, I never met the man, but he used to be friends with my dad a long time ago.”

“Your dad used to live here?”

“He lived here for a summer in 1945
. Worked over at Steamers Wharf as a deck hand. He said he made a lot of good friends during the short time he was here, including your friend, Zachary Collins. I was in the area and thought I might look him up. I was sorry to hear he passed away.”

“I guess Helen told you he died just a few days ago.”

“She did. She said if anyone in the area knew anything about his personal life it would be you. I’m actually on my way to the Bay Area but figured it was worth a stop if you had time to talk.”

“I have a class in a few minutes, but if you don’t mind walking over to the weight room with me, we can talk while the girls work out
. They know the drill, so all I really have to do is provide an adult presence.”

“I’d like that.”

Tj picked up a clipboard, then showed Trent into the hallway, locking her office door behind her. The wide hallway was lined with gray lockers stacked three high. Every twenty feet or so, a doorway led into the classrooms the physical education department used in the absence of a real gym. The weight room was three doors down from Tj’s office. She indicated the folding chairs in the corner of the room, where Trent could have a seat while she quickly took role call and made a few announcements. After answering several questions and demonstrating the proper form for a new exercise she wanted the girls to try, she joined him.

Tj quickly did the math in her head as she sat down next to him. “So, Zachary would have been around twenty-one when your dad knew him.”

“I’m not really sure. My dad has a photo with four men including him in it. He was twenty-two at the time, and the men all look about the same age.”

“Any idea
who the other two men are?” Zachary never talked about his life before she met him, and Tj found she was wildly curious about what kind of man he’d been before the accident. According to the little she’d been able to find out through town gossip, he’d been quite the partier and ladies’ man.

“The other two men were named Timothy Bell and Arthur Holland
. Neither man is still alive, but from the stories my dad told, it sounded like they shared a wild summer. I have to admit I was really interested in learning more about my dad’s time at the lake since he turned out to be a very conservative history professor. Somehow the stories he told and the man I knew never really lined up.”

Arthur Holland
? Tj knew a woman named Prudence Holland whose late husband had been named Arthur. Interesting that Prudence never mentioned the fact that her husband and Zachary were friends. Even more interesting that Zachary never mentioned it, considering Arthur had continued to live in the same town as he did until the day he died. Something must have happened to drive a wedge between the men. Tj wished she’d tried harder to get Zachary to talk about his life before his self-imposed imprisonment. She guessed now she’d never know.

“Did your father stay in touch with the men after he left?” Tj wondered.

“For a while, but from what I could gather there was some type of falling out. Apparently all four men set their sights on the same woman. Once my dad realized he didn’t have a shot he started dating my mom and more or less severed his relationship with the other three.”

“Yet he kept the picture?”

“I know. I thought it was odd too. He claims he knew the men for less than a year and completely severed the relationship with them shortly after that, yet he kept a photo of them on his desk until the day he died. He talked a lot about the summer he was here—the parties they attended, the trouble they got into. He never really talked much about what happened after that.”

“And you were hoping Zachary could fill in some of the blanks about what happened?” Tj guessed.

“More or less.” Trent shrugged. “To be honest, I never really thought about it much until a man named John Henry called my mom a couple of months ago, looking for my dad on Zachary Collins’s behalf. He was actually trying to track down any descendants of Timothy Bell, unaware that my dad had passed away, and was hoping he kept in touch with the woman Timothy eventually married. Anyway, the whole thing got me thinking, so since I was coming out west anyway, I decided to take a detour and see if I could talk to Mr. Collins. I guess I should have gotten here a few days sooner.”

“I’m not sure how receptive Zachary would have been to your questions
. Something happened when he was a young man that turned him into a total recluse. It is interesting that he was looking for this Timothy Bell, though. I can’t imagine why he would have wanted to get hold of him after all these years. Did you know anything about the wife?”

Trent shook his head
. “I’m afraid I never asked my dad about it. He didn’t seem to want to talk much about what happened to the three men after they parted ways, and it didn’t really seem important at the time. It’s surprising how many unanswered details of a loved one’s life don’t seem important until they’re gone and all you have left are memories. You start thinking of all of the questions you’d never thought to ask but suddenly wish you had. I’ve been driving my mom crazy since my dad passed, asking her about all the seemingly unimportant details of her life, but I realize now that someday I’ll wish I knew where she went to elementary school and who her first big crush was.”

Tj thought about her grandfather, who was getting on in years, and realized that Trent had a point
. She knew a lot about the man, but there were also a lot of gaps. Things she’d never asked. Things he’d never shared. Maybe she’d make more of a point to sit down and really talk to him.

Tj talked with Trent a while longer, then dismissed her class and walked him out to the parking lot
. It would have been interesting to know if Zachary would have taken the time to speak to the son of his old friend, and Tj was dying to know what he might have told him. Tj thought about what Trent told her. If Zachary and Prudence’s husband Arthur were friends in 1945 and Prudence married Arthur in 1946, was it possible Prudence knew Zachary? Even more interesting, was it possible Prudence was the woman the four men had fought over? Trent said his father married another woman and as far at Tj knew Zachary never married, so in all likelihood the winning suitor was either Timothy Bell or Arthur Holland. She knew Prudence usually had lunch with her best friend, Hazel Whipple, at the post office and decided she’d stop by during her prep period. She had been planning to use her prep to work on the grant, but truth be told, she was getting to the point where all the paperwork was beginning to blur into one big mess. Nikki was good with filling in the blanks. Maybe she’d ask her to help out.