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

by Kathi Daley

  “In the back, unpacking boxes.”

  I looked toward the rear of the store, where a hallway, which I assumed led to the back, was clearly marked as providing restrooms. “Is it okay to go on back?”

  “Fine by me.”

  I smiled at the woman, who looked bored, bored, bored, before heading to the rear of the store, which appeared to be free of customers. Luckily, there was only one person in the back, an older man with a slight hump in his back. “Are you Toby Upton?”

  “Who’s askin’?”

  “Tj Jensen. I was hoping to speak to you about Buck Barnes.”

  “Don’t have nothin’ to say about that no-good backstabbin’ thief.”

  “I guess you heard he’s dead.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “There are those who think you might have had a hand in it.”

  Toby laughed. “Trust me, I had no use for a man who tried to swindle me out of what he owed me, but I didn’t kill him. Why would I? Now that the blackheart is dead there’s no way for me to ever collect what I’m due.”

  I supposed Toby had a point. “Do you know who might have wanted him dead?”

  “Lots of folks.”

  “Such as?”

  Toby set down the box cutter he’d been holding and hoisted himself up onto a counter. I guess he figured if we were going to chat he’d make himself comfortable. “Tara Lee Bradford, for one.”

  “Who is she and why would she want Buck dead?”

  “Tara Lee owns one of those big homes up on the bluff with the fancy landscaping. Buck got it in his head that there was treasure buried on her property, so he took to sneaking over her wall at night and digging in her flower bed. Wowie, talk about mad. I thought Tara Lee was going to skin the man alive right there in the middle of the town square after she realized he was the one responsible for digging up several of her prize roses.”

  “Do you think this Tara Lee would follow Buck to Garrett Hanford’s house and kill him in the attic?”

  Toby scrunched up his nose. “No, I don’t suppose she would.”

  “Did Buck tell you he’d found Garrett’s map?”

  “He told everyone he’d found the map. ’Course, everyone knew the map was long gone. Garrett told me so himself a long time ago.”

  “Can you think of anyone who might have believed Buck and followed him to the attic?”

  Toby jumped down off the counter and picked up his box cutter. “I best get back to work, but I guess it wouldn’t hurt to have a conversation with a man named Adam Joyner. I heard he teamed up with Buck shortly before Buck disappeared.”

  “Do you know where I can find Mr. Joyner?”

  “He works at the post office.”

  “Is there anyone else you can think of that I might want to speak to?”

  “Nope.”

  I left the store and returned to my car. I did need to get home, but I supposed it wouldn’t hurt to stop by and see if Gertie had any news. Before we’d left on Friday she’d promised to keep her ear to the ground, and I’d come to learn that if there was news on the island to be had, Gertie was the one who was apt to have it.

  “I was just thinking about you and here you are,” Gertie greeted me when I walked in. She turned to the woman who was sitting at the counter. “This here is the sweet little thing I was telling you about.”

  “I’m so happy to meet you.” The woman smiled. “My name is Beverly, although most people call me Bev.”

  “I’m Tj.”

  “Gertie here was telling me that you are planning to take on Greg Norton and the development he works for,” Bev informed me.

  “It is my intention to speak to the man if I can ever track him down and make certain that Garrett’s wishes are made clear. I went by the inn this morning, but he had already left.”

  Beverly motioned for me to have a seat on the stool beside her.

  “That man is bad news. If you ask me, he’ll do anything he needs to do to get Garrett’s land. I guess you heard that he’s been seen loitering around at the resort?”

  “Loitering around? What do you mean? What has he been doing?”

  “I’m not sure exactly, but I’m willin’ to bet he’s been up to no good. I’ve done some checking and it seems that Destination Properties, the company he works for, has a reputation for buying land at a discount after some sort of problem with the property has been discovered.”

  “You’re suggesting Norton creates the problems in the first place?”

  “That would be my guess. Of course, I have nothing to base that on other than a hunch, but if it were me trying to protect Garrett’s property, I’d keep my eyes open.”

  “Okay, thanks, I will. Do you happen to know who it was that had seen him at the resort?”

  “Meg from over at the museum is the one that mentioned it to me, so I’d speak to her.”

  “I will.”

  “Any news about Buck’s murder?” Gertie asked.

  “Not really. I stopped by and spoke to Toby. Like you said, he was pretty mad at Buck, but I doubt he’s our killer. For one thing, I don’t think he’s physically capable of hitting a man hard enough to kill him. He did give me another name, however. Adam Joyner.”

  Gertie frowned. “I know that Buck convinced Adam to take a leave of absence from his job to help him look for treasure, but I don’t see Adam as the sort to kill a person.”

  “I don’t know,” Beverly countered. “The popular theory is that Adam suffered some sort of a breakdown.”

  “Breakdown?” I asked.

  “Adam is a married man with a good job and three children to support,” Gertie explained. “I’m not sure how Buck did it, but somehow he managed to convince Adam to temporarily chuck it all to go treasure hunting. I suppose Adam must have been going through a bit of a midlife crisis and needed a break from the monotony and responsibility of his life, and a treasure hunt was a way to take that break. Chances are that Adam would have worked through the temporary insanity that caused him to do such a thing in fairly short order on his own, but Adam’s wife, Beth, was having none of it. The last time I saw her, she was on her way to knock Buck upside the head and put a stop to the whole thing.”

  “And did she?”

  “I guess she must have. Adam is back at work at the post office.”

  “Did Buck do that often?” I asked Bev. “Talk people into joining his treasure hunt?”

  “Buck was a friendly sort who had a tendency to make friends fairly easy, and it was natural for him to want to share his passion for treasure hunting with a lot of different people. I can think of a handful of people who caught the fever from Buck, but Buck never really had the financial resources to make his dream into a reality and most of the local folks on the island knew that.”

  “Garrett seems to think that Buck was killed as a result of partnering up with the wrong person.”

  “I sort of doubt that,” Bev answered. “Although there are folks in town who are speculating that Buck might actually have found the map he was going around telling everyone he had. I suppose if that were true he could have partnered up with the wrong person. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the mechanism in his brain that allows most of us to discriminate between individuals who would make good friends and those it would be best to avoid.”

  “You said that Beth Joyner planned to knock Buck upside the head. You don’t think she actually did so?”

  “Beth?” Bev shook her head. “Beth is a strong woman who likes to keep a tight rein on the finances since Adam tends to go off on a tangent every now and then, but I don’t see her killing a man over something like a treasure hunt. No, if you ask me, it’s more likely that Buck was killed by someone from out of the area.”

  “I had seen him hanging out with a couple of men,” Gertie added.

  “Do you know their names?”


  “No,” Gertie answered. “I can’t say I ever caught a name. I can ask around and see what I can dig up if you’d like.”

  “Thanks. That would be helpful just in case we decide we need the information at some point in the future.” I glanced at the clock. “It was nice chatting with you both, but I have to go. I’m taking the girls to kids’ camp today.”

  The girls were still getting ready for kids’ camp when I returned home, so I took out the small notebook and turned to a clean page. I settled onto a bar stool and wrote: “Who killed Buck Barnes?”

  I then created two columns: “Suspect” and “Motive.”

  In the first column, I jotted down, “Toby Upton.” Next to his name I wrote: “Buck owed him money.” Under Toby’s name I wrote “Beth Joyner.” Next to her name I added: “Husband talked into joining Buck’s treasure hunt.” I figured Beth had a pretty good motive for wanting Buck out of the way. Trying to pay the bills and raise three children while your husband was off on a treasure hunt couldn’t be easy, and Gertie did say that the last time she spoke to Beth she was on her way to hit Buck upside the head. Neither Gertie nor Bev seemed to think that she’d actually killed Buck, but in my mind it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that she had actually carried through with her threat.

  Under Beth’s name I wrote “Adam Joyner.” I wasn’t sure if he had a motive, but if he was mixed up with Buck just prior to his death, that made him a suspect.

  At the bottom of the list I added Greg Norton’s name. Under motive I wrote “wants Garrett’s land.” It occurred to me that if Norton had been out at the resort doing whatever it was that he planned to do to decrease the value of Garrett’s property, perhaps Buck had been out at the resort looking for the map at the same time and had seen something that Norton didn’t want seen. I’d never even met the man, but based on what I’d heard about him, I was willing to bet that Norton might be willing to kill a man if it meant getting what he wanted.

  If I was totally honest, I really hoped that Norton was our guy. I currently felt my attention was split in many different directions, but if the man who was trying to steal Garrett’s land was also our killer, it would lessen the burden significantly.

  Once the list was made I highlighted Toby’s name with a yellow marker. I decided that I’d color code my suspects as I worked. If the suspect seemed innocent, but I didn’t know for certain, I’d highlight them in yellow. If I’d all but cleared them, I’d highlight them in green, and if after speaking to them they remained firmly at the top of my list, I’d highlight them in red.

  I didn’t have an alibi for Toby, but because I didn’t know exactly when Buck had been killed, trying to confirm alibis wasn’t going to work in this case. Toby didn’t look like he could physically overtake and kill a man, and he hadn’t seemed the least bit secretive in his replies, so I pretty much doubted he was the one I was looking for.

  I added Tara Lee’s name on a separate page. I doubted she was the one who’d killed Buck, but Toby had mentioned her as a suspect and you never knew when you might have cause to follow up on a statement someone you’d spoken to had made. I also added Meg from the museum to this second list. I had no reason to believe she was responsible for Buck’s death, but if she knew the identity of the person or persons who had seen Norton on the property she might be able to provide a valuable clue.

  I wished I had more time to develop my list, but my sisters appeared from upstairs once I’d entered Meg’s name into my notebook, and helping them find a comfortable routine for the summer was the most important thing at the moment.

  Chapter 5

  It had taken quite a bit of negotiating to get Ashley and Gracie to agree to check out the Gull Island Kids’ Camp. Ashley was still pretty committed to her agenda of making my life miserable by hating every single thing about the island, and Gracie was so insecure that she almost broke into tears at the thought of being left alone in a strange environment. After I assured them both that not only was Uncle Kyle coming with us, but that I also wouldn’t force them to stay at the camp if they weren’t so inclined, they both agreed to give it a try.

  “Wow, this looks really nice,” I commented as we pulled up in front of a large wooden building right on the beach. The facility was situated so that a wall of windows looked out onto a pool that divided the grassy area where soccer and baseball fields were set up, the ocean just beyond. There were rows of volleyball nets lined up along the beach and colorful rowboats tied to buoys just offshore.

  “It’s okay,” Ashley agreed. “Did we bring swimsuits?”

  “You each have your backpack with a swimsuit, a towel, sunscreen, a snack, and a water bottle, just in case you decide to stay.”

  It was obvious by the look of terror on Gracie’s face that even the prospect of swimming in the Olympic-sized pool wasn’t going to be enough to convince her to spend the day at the camp. I had to admit that despite the fact that Ashley had become a huge pain in my backside with her frequent outbursts, I was much more concerned about my younger sister, Gracie. When Ashley and Gracie had first come to live with me after our mother died, Ashley had refused to accept the fact that Mom was never coming back and spent months making sure everyone in her orbit was as miserable as she was. In comparison, Gracie seemed to make the best of her new situation after only a brief period of adjustment. I had hoped her willingness to adapt to new situations would carry through on our trip to the island, but so far she seemed to be having an even harder time than Ashley.

  “Let’s go inside to talk to the director so we can see what this is all about,” Kyle suggested.

  “Okay, but remember, we don’t have to stay,” Gracie reminded him.

  “Got it. This is just a recon mission.”

  “What’s recon?”

  “It’s an investigation to see what’s what. Sort of like spying.”

  That had Gracie giggling.

  Gracie loved Kyle. Don’t get me wrong: we all loved Kyle. He had to be one of the kindest people on the planet, but Gracie seemed to have forged a special bond with the man who, I suspected, had become some sort of surrogate father to her in her young mind. Not that I minded. If Gracie was going to attach herself to any man, Kyle was a wonderful choice. But I did worry about what would happen if, for whatever reason, he was no longer in our lives.

  “I hope this isn’t some lame camp for little kids,” Ashley commented as we walked across the parking lot toward the large structure.

  “Gertie made it sound like the camp catered to kids of all ages.”

  “I don’t need a babysitter.”

  “I know that. It never occurred to me that you did. But it might be fun to have something to do every day other than hang out at the resort literally watching the paint dry.”

  “Lame.” Ashley rolled her eyes at my attempt at a joke.

  A rush of cool air greeted us as we opened the front door. I was still getting used to the fact that most of the buildings on the island had been outfitted with air conditioners that I imagined ran continuously throughout the summer. Having grown up in the mountains, with a much cooler climate, the centrally cooled air was something I would have to get used to.

  In the lobby we were greeted by a woman who looked to be around my age. She had dark hair that she wore in a long braid over one shoulder. Like me, she had a smattering of freckles across her nose and, also like me, she was petite and totally devoid of makeup.

  “Welcome. My name is Willow. I’m the director of the Gull Island Kids’ Camp. How can I help you?”

  “This is Ashley and Gracie. We’re going to be spending the summer on the island, and Gertie, from the diner, suggested we check out your program.”

  “You must be the wonderful friend who has given up her summer to help Garret with his renovations.”

  I nodded. Did everyone know Garrett had asked me to help out? “My name is Tj, and this is Kyle.”
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  “So very happy to meet you, Kyle.”

  Willow’s eyes seemed to dance with delight when she spoke. Of course, Kyle tended to receive enthusiastic greetings from all the women he was introduced to. Although if you asked me, he never seemed to notice the stir he created with his exceptional good looks.

  “Do you know Garrett well?” I wondered.

  “We’re friends. We share a common love of old black and white movies, turtle rescue, and sappy novels.”

  Sappy novels? This was something I didn’t know about my father’s longtime friend. “You have a beautiful facility. It’s very inviting, and I love the view of the ocean just outside the windows.”

  “Thank you. We consider ourselves to be very fortunate. Our land was donated for use as a recreational facility by one of our oldest families, and the entire island pitched in to raise the funds we needed for the building.” Willow came out from behind the counter and turned her attention to the girls. “So, how old are the two of you?”

  “Eleven,” Ashley answered.

  “Eight,” Gracie answered in turn.

  “That’s perfect. We cater to both island residents and visitors between the ages of six and sixteen. Our campers are grouped by age: six through nine, ten through twelve, and thirteen through sixteen. The older group is more often than not engaged in activities off-site such as sailing or scuba diving, while the two younger groups spend the majority of the time at the facility. We do, however, have a wonderful surfing program that anyone who can pass the swim test can sign up for, and we also have craft rooms, an exercise room, and a computer lab inside, although our computer lab is down at the moment. Seems our system crashed and I haven’t had a chance to have it looked at yet.”

  “You have a centralized server with work stations?” Kyle verified.

  “We do.”

  “I can take a look at it, if you’d like.”

  “Kyle is a whiz with computers,” I assured the friendly woman.

  “Really? That would be great. I’ve been trying to get someone out to look at it since last Friday.”