Snowmen In Paradise (Book 2 Tj Jensen Paradise Lake Mysteries) (14 page)

“There
’s no way Josh would kill anyone,” Jenna insisted. “I’m sure he must have confided in Dennis. They
are
best friends. I’ll call him and see what he knows.”

Tj watched Jenna’s face lose color as she talked to her husband
. She couldn’t hear Dennis’s end of the conversation, but she was willing to bet it wasn’t going well.

“What is it?”
Tj asked as soon as Jenna hung up.

“
Josh has been off shift, the same as Dennis, since the fire, but he’s supposed to work tomorrow. He called in a little while ago and requested time off for personal reasons. I asked Dennis if he’d spoken to him since Sunday, and he said he’d left a bunch of messages for him, but he hasn’t returned any. You don’t think . . . ?”

Tj didn’t think Josh was capable of killing Travis
, but Boggs would jump all over this if he found out about it. Tj didn’t know who had called Josh or where he’d gone, but she knew she couldn’t go to the authorities yet, so it was going to be up to her to find out.

T
he trio decided to move the conversation over to Jenna’s house so Dennis could participate. The Elstons lived on the outskirts of town in a large two-story house situated on ten acres of pristine forest bordering the Paradise River. Although it was late and Tj longed to go home and climb into her big bed, she knew she owed it to everyone involved to help figure out what, if anything, they could do to help Josh before Boggs found out about his outburst in the bar and issued an APB for his arrest.

“There’s no way Josh killed anyone,” Dennis insisted
. Kristi and Kari were long asleep, so they had to keep their voices down as they sat around the kitchen table. “I’ve left ten more messages since you called, but he isn’t picking up his cell.”

“
You know him better than anyone. If he was upset and wanted to disappear, where would he go?” Tj asked.

Dennis thought about it
. “He likes to go fishing along the American River, but given that its two degrees outside, I doubt that’s where he went. His uncle has a cabin up north that he talks about now and then, but I’m not sure exactly where it is. I suppose his mom would know. I could give her a call, but she’d wonder why I was asking, and I hate to upset her if I don’t need to.”

“What about his friend in Pismo Beach
?” Jenna suggested. “He might be hiding out with him.”

“I guess I could call him
to see if he’s heard from Josh.”

“Maybe we’r
e going about this all wrong,” Kyle suggested. “We all believe Josh didn’t kill Travis and yet this entire conversation is based on the assumption that he
did
and is hiding out.”

“Good point,” Dennis acknowledged.

“Jenna mentioned that you and Josh were supposed to work tomorrow but that he called in and said he needed time off for personal reasons,” Kyle continued. “It seems to me that if Josh killed Travis and was on the run, he wouldn’t take the time to call in to the station.”

“So if he’s not hiding out
, where is he?” Dennis wondered.

“Here’s what I don’t get
.” Jenna set a plate of homemade coffee cake on the table. If there was one thing you could say about Jenna, it was that she was the perfect hostess, no matter what the occasion. “The fire occurred on Sunday. Today is Tuesday. Murphy told Tj that Josh received a call on Sunday evening, while he was in the bar. How come Josh knew that Travis was a suspect but Dennis hadn’t heard? When Tj mentioned that Josh received a call, I assumed it came from Captain Brown, or maybe the investigator on the case.”

“That’s a good point
.” Dennis sat forward. “I’ve been off duty since the fire, and so has Josh. Why would someone call him and not me?”

“Unless they had a specific reason for calling Josh,” Tj theorized
. “In any other case, if you were off duty and information came forth about a case you weren’t specifically working on, would you be called at home with an update?”

“No
. Not unless they needed information from me, or the case was directly related to me in some way,” Dennis confirmed. “It actually makes sense that no one called me. What doesn’t make sense is that someone called Josh. We were both off on Sunday and only responded as backup support. We were the first engine to leave and were in no way involved in the investigation.”

“Unless whoever called Josh kn
ew that the man who was burned is his father,” Jenna pointed out.

“Yeah, but
supposedly no one knows that. Not even me, and I’m his best friend. When Bert Sanders was pulled out of the building and loaded onto the ambulance, Josh didn’t say a word. He just focused on putting out the fire, gave me a high five when we were finally released to leave, and said he’d see me on Wednesday. I know what Murphy said about Bert being his dad, but even with that knowledge, I’m having a hard time believing it’s true.” Dennis rested his elbows on the table and put his head in his hands. “You’d think the guy would have said something, or at least have shown some sign of recognition.”

“Don’t feel bad
, honey.” Jenna put her arm around her husband. “Josh obviously is very motivated to keep his dad’s identity a secret. I’m sure he would have told you eventually.”

Dennis took a deep breath
. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Is there any way to find ou
t who might have called Josh?” Tj asked.

“
If it was an official call from someone at the station, I can probably find out who made it,” Dennis said.

“How long would it normally take for the investigators to det
ermine the cause of the fire?” Tj asked.

“Depends
. In order to investigate, they need to wait until the structure cools down. The amount of time that takes depends on the severity of the fire, the air temperature, and whether or not an accelerant was used, among other things.”

“Does it seem reasonable that a fire
that completely destroyed a structure on Sunday afternoon would have cooled down enough for an investigation to be conducted that evening?”

“No.” Dennis looked up
. “I see where you’re going with this. In order for the call Josh received to have been official, an investigation would have had to have been completed. There’s no way.”

Tj looked out
of the window at the snow that was starting to fall. She really should be getting home, but she didn’t want to leave until they got this figured out. She supposed if the weather got too bad, she could spend the night and then get up early to go home to shower before she had to leave for work.

“We nee
d to find out who called Josh,” Jenna said.

“Dylan could get his phone records,” Tj suggested.

“We can’t tell Dylan until we clear Josh.” Jenna looked concerned.

“I can get it,” Kyle volunteered.
Kyle was a computer genius who wrote software prior to moving to Serenity. If there was a database to hack into, Kyle was the man to do it.

Forty
minutes later, Kyle had the number. It turned out that the cell phone used to call Josh belonged to Travis Davidson.

For the first time in at least a month, Tj felt herself truly begin to relax. After weeks of hard work and a breakneck schedule, things were beginning to come together. Not only had her downhill team nailed the day’s qualifying rounds but her choir had rocked the house during the opening ceremonies of the winter carnival just a few hours earlier. It would have been a perfect day except for the fact that they still hadn’t heard from Josh, Chelsea was still in jail, and Travis’s killer had yet to be identified. Jenna reported that no one from the firehouse had heard from Josh, but the fact that the fire had been arson had been supported by the investigator’s report. Apparently, Travis must have told Josh that he set the fire, but that news wasn’t widely known; the official report didn’t list him as a suspect.

After the concert
, Tj had invited Dylan, Jenna, and Kyle to a celebratory dinner at the Beef and Brew, an upscale steakhouse situated right on the lake on the east end of town. During the summer, people came from miles around to dine on the deck overlooking the water, where large fire pits were placed strategically to give off cozy heat even on the crispest mountain evenings. And in the winter, diners could enjoy the view from the interior of the log building. Several real wood fireplaces provided enough warmth to keep things comfortable on the coldest days. The bar, where Tj and the gang decided to procure a table, was on the opposite side of the kitchen, as far away from the formal dining area as the building would allow. While the bar served good but simple fare such as wraps, pizza, sandwiches, and burgers, the dining room was famous for its intimate atmosphere, as well as steaks that literally melted in your mouth and fresh seafood that restaurant owner Hank Hammond had flown in every day from the California coast.

“To Kyle
.” Tj raised her glass. “For working a miracle and pulling together the best concert this town has witnessed in a very long time.”

“Here, here
,” Jenna rang in.

Kyle blushed
. “It was nothing. They’re good kids who just needed a little direction. You have a lot of potential in that group. Even Marley wasn’t too bad once I got her singing in the right key.”

“Did I hear an offer to continue working as unofficial co-choir director?”
Tj persuaded. “It’s an unpaid position, but I don’t suppose that matters much from where you’re sitting.”

“I’d love to continue on
. I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun. Although I’m not sure I can take much more of Marley’s help as an assistant. I know this sounds ridiculous, but I think she has a crush on me.”

Tj laughed
. “And you’re just figuring that out? The girl has been seriously crushing since the first time you walked in the door. I thought you knew that.”

“I’m afraid I missed that
completely. I really think it’d be best if we spent less time together, but she’s been a real trooper, so I’d like to let her down gently.”

“No worries
,” Tj replied. Kyle was sweet to be concerned about Marley’s schoolgirl crush. “I’ll just tell her she’s too valuable on stage and we can’t waste her time with such menial chores. She’s a diva by nature, so I’m betting she’ll leap right onto that wagon.”

“Thanks.”

“No, thank
you
. I don’t know what the choir would have done without you. You even got Kendall Grant to sing loud enough to be heard. She’s so quiet in class that half the time I forget she’s even there.”

“Kendall is just shy
, and fading into the background is the way she deals with it,” Kyle informed her. “After I heard her voice, I knew she had potential, so I helped her to forget about the audience and look only at me. I told her she needed to sing loud enough so that I could hear her, and then I just kept moving farther away.”

“Careful or she’s going to be the next
one crushing on her amazing director,” Jenna warned.

“You think so?”
Kyle looked genuinely concerned.

“Sure, why not
?” Jenna answered. “You’re young, good-looking, kind, and attentive.”

“Sounds like someone el
se is crushing,” Dylan teased.

Jenna laughed.
“I overheard one of the dad’s say that you might try to put together a musical.”

“Must have been Marley’s
father,” Tj speculated. “That girl has been working as hard to complicate things as I’ve been working to keep them simple.”

“I think a play could be fun
,” Kyle said.

“Hey
, if you have the time and want to attempt such a thing, you have my blessing.” Tj symbolically washed her hands of the whole thing.

“I’ll help
,” Jenna offered. “I was in a few plays in high school. They were comedies, not musicals, but I remember them being really fun. Maybe we can use the community center and do something in conjunction with the Kick Off to Summer event in June.”

“There are a lot of good musicals that might be doable if we start
working now,” Kyle added.

“Sorry to have to eat and run
, but I really should get back to relieve Roy,” Dylan announced. “Now that we have a prisoner, someone has to be on-site at all times.”

“I’m surprised she’
s still in the jail,” Jenna commented. “I thought long-term
guests
were sent to the larger facility in Indulgence.”

“Normally
, we would transport anyone we planned to hold for more than a few hours, but Chelsea Hanson’s family has a lot of clout in this area,” Dylan reminded her. “I’m pretty sure Sheriff Boggs is doing what he can to appease the Hansons short of letting her go.”

“
See you tomorrow?” Tj asked hopefully.

“Tomorrow should be doable.”