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Overview
"Daley's characters come to life on the page. Her novels are filled with a little mystery and a little romance which makes for a murderous adventure." - Tonya Kappes, USA Today Bestselling Author of Fixin' To Die
"Daley's mysteries offer as much sizzle and pop as fireworks on a hot summer's day." - Mary Kennedy, Author of The Dream Club Mysteries
"Intriguing, likeable characters, keep-you-guessing mysteries, and settings that literally transport you to Paradise...Daley's stories draw you in and keep you glued until the very last page." - Tracy Weber, Agatha-Nominated Author of the Downward Dog Mysteries
"I'm a huge fan of Kathi's books. I think I've read every one. Without a doubt, she's a gifted cozy mystery author and I eagerly await each new release!" - Dianne Harman, Author of the High Desert Cozy Mysteries
"Daley really knows how to write a top-notch cozy." - MJB Reviewers
"Kathi Daley writes a story with a puzzling cold-case mystery while highlighting...the love of home, family, and good friends." - Chatting About Cozies
Between volunteering for the annual pumpkin festival and coaching her girls to the state soccer finals, high school teacher Tj Jensen finds her good friend Zachary Collins dead in his favorite chair. When the handsome new deputy closes the case without so much as a "why" or "how," Tj turns her attention from chili cook-offs and pumpkin carving to complex puzzles, prophetic riddles, and a decades-old secret she seems destined to unravel.
Related subjects include: cozy mysteries, women sleuths, murder mystery series, whodunit mysteries (whodunnit), humorous murder mysteries, book club recommendations, amateur sleuth books, small town.
Books in the Tj Jensen Mystery Series:
Part of the Henery Press Mystery Series Collection, if you like one, you'll probably like them all...
Author Bio:
Kathi Daley lives with her husband, kids, grandkids, and Bernese mountain dogs in beautiful Lake Tahoe. When she isn't writing, she likes to read (preferably at the beach or by the fire), cook (preferably something with chocolate or cheese), and garden (planting and planning, not weeding). She also enjoys spending time in the water, hiking, biking, and snowshoeing. Kathi uses the mountain setting in which she lives, along with the animals (wild and domestic) that share her home, as inspiration for her five cozy mystery series: Zoe Donovan, Whales and Tails Island, Tj Jensen, Sand and Sea Hawaiian, and Seacliff High Teen.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781635110920 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Henery Press |
| Publication date: | 09/06/2016 |
| Series: | Tj Jensen Series , #1 |
| Pages: | 234 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.56(d) |
About the Author
AudioFile Earphones Award winner Coleen Marlo has earned numerous Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Awards and won an Audie Award for her narration of Snakewoman of Little Egypt by Robert Hellenga.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Friday, October 22
Tj Jensen carefully parallel parked her 4Runner on Lake Front Road in front of Tiz the Season, the retail store where she'd brought her half- sisters, Ashley and Gracie, to buy their Halloween costumes. The entire downtown section of the lakefront community of Serenity, Nevada was decorated for the upcoming Halloween festivities. Bright yellow aspen trees lining the sidewalks were draped with orange and white twinkle lights, while hundreds of scarecrows and huge orange pumpkins were displayed in front of brightly lit shops inviting the casual passerby in from the crisp fall air.
"Oh, look," Gracie gasped as she climbed out of the vehicle and noticed the huge fall village, complete with an operating train, in the front window. Ashley and Gracie trotted over to watch as the small train chugged, tooted, and smoked its way through the miniature town square. The store's owner added to the village each season. This year a delightful traveling carnival with a revolving Ferris wheel and a brightly painted merry-go-round were prominently displayed alongside the charming Main Street.
"Okay, we're in, we're out," Tj warned as she locked the car door and slung her purse over her shoulder. "You need to be at dance in half an hour."
"There is no dance," Gracie informed her.
Tj turned to look directly at the brown-haired, brown-eyed kindergartener while Ashley walked around the edge of the building to get a closer look at the miniature village. "It's Friday. You always have dance on Friday."
"Miss Marsha sent a note. I gave it to you on Monday." Gracie's ringlets bounced as she shuffled impatiently.
Tj did remember something about a note.
"She had to go to the dynocologist to get a baby," Gracie informed her.
Marsha and her husband of four years had been trying to conceive for a while, but Tj was surprised she'd told her students as much. "She told you she was going to the gynecologist?"
"No. She said she had a pointment, but Bethany said she was getting a baby from a dynocologist 'cause she needed to get fertilizer for her eggs." Bethany Sherwood was a precocious five-year-old who, in Tj's opinion, was a bit too informed for her age. "Dance is going to be on lasterday."
"Lasterday isn't a word," corrected red-haired, green-eyed Ashley as she returned from the window. "Dance class has been rescheduled to tomorrow. Can we go in now?" she asked impatiently. "The place is packed. All the good stuff will be gone."
"There's plenty of good stuff." Tj grabbed each of her sisters' hands and opened the front door to deafening noise as excited children ran up and down crowded aisles in search of the perfect costume. Picking up a bright orange hand basket, she pushed her way into the throng.
"Mom said that last year when I wanted to be Hannah Montana, and I had to be Strawberry Shortcake. Do you know how many seven-year-olds went trick-or- treating as Strawberry Shortcake? One," Ashley continued without waiting for Tj to answer. "My social life was totally ruined."
"What social life?" Tj teased. "You were seven."
Ashley sighed loudly and rolled her eyes, but Tj noticed a teary glaze to which her independent sister would never admit. While Gracie would curl up in her lap and cry herself to sleep if she was feeling sad, Ashley hid her feelings behind a mask of mature indifference that Tj had rarely been able to crack. Tj paused and reconsidered her hurried approach to the errand. Despite her best intentions, she'd made many mistakes with Ashley in the three months since her mother died and the courts had appointed her legal guardian of two half-sisters she barely knew.
"You're right," Tj apologized, blue eyes locking with pale green ones. "I'm sorry I didn't have the chance to bring you earlier in the month. I'm sure there will be plenty of good stuff, but if there's not, we'll try another store."
"Okay," Ashley conceded, turning to wipe away a tear before anyone noticed.
"How about witches?" Tj suggested as she tried to lighten the mood by holding a mask with a huge wart on the nose in front of her face.
Ashley placed a crown from a nearby table on her head. "I want to be a princess."
"I want to be Belle," Gracie insisted.
"Belle's too provincial," replied Ashley. "I want to be Jasmine."
Provincial? Tj watched as her intellectually advanced but socially awkward sister skipped down the aisle toward a table overflowing with dresses and accessories of all colors and sizes. Hurrying to catch up, she pulled a blue dress from the pile. "This looks like your size."
"That's Sleeping Beauty," Ashley complained. "I really want to be Jasmine."
"Okay." Tj set her purse on the floor and dug through the disorganized pile of costumes throngs of shoppers had tried on and discarded. At one point, Tj figured, the delicate outfits, which the sign on the wall promised came with dress, crown, and plastic shoes, had been neatly packaged and organized by princess and size. Today, however, the clothes were piled onto a table in total disarray. "How about this?" She held up a dress and a pair of shoes in front of Gracie.
"Shoes are right, but that's Cinderella's dress," Gracie whined. "I want to be Belle."
Wasn't one princess the same as any other? Fancy dress, high-heeled slippers, and sparkly crown? Tj set down the pair of shoes on the floor next to her purse, texted an SOS to her best friend, Jenna Elston, and waited for a reply. Tj attributed her lack of knowledge of anything princess to the fact that her mother had deserted her when she was only three years old, subjecting her to an upbringing in an all-male household. Tj conveniently blamed her mom's desertion for most, if not all, of her feminine deficiencies.
But, if she was honest with herself, they were probably more genetic than environmental. Most days Tj wore her tomboyishness as a badge of honor. She could outhike, outski, and outrun most of the men in town of a comparable age. But today, waist deep in princess dresses, she really could use Jenna's help.
Tj's phone beeped when Jenna texted back: yellow dress, dark hair, B & B.
"B and B?" Tj said out loud.
"Beauty and the Beast," Gracie informed her as she tossed a bag of Snickers into their basket.
Tj didn't know how she would have managed when her mother and her third husband died in a car accident three months earlier if it weren't for Jenna and her unwavering support. It helped that Jenna had two young daughters about the same age as her sisters. Unfortunately, Tj'd had to call on Jenna during the past few months more often than she cared to confess.
"Excuse me." Tj turned and grabbed the upper arm of the high school-aged clerk. "I'm looking for a Belle costume."
"There's more Disney stuff at the end of aisle twelve."
"Thanks." Tj grabbed Gracie's hand and turned to change direction.
"Do you have Jasmine costumes?" Ashley asked before the clerk could walk away.
"I think we're out of Jasmine, but we have a few Snow Whites left."
"Snow White is for babies. I want to be Jasmine," Ashley insisted.
"Sorry. You should have come in earlier. Just a week until Halloween, you know."
Ashley put her hands on her hips and shot Tj a glance that said I told you so.
"Besides," he added, "you really should be Ariel. Ariel has beautiful red hair like you. I think I might have a costume that will fit you in the back."
"Really?" Ashley beamed.
"Yeah, I'll check. Just wait right here."
"He said I was beautiful," Ashley gushed as the clerk went in search of the costume. "He said I looked just like Ariel."
"You do honey, you do."
"What about Belle?" Gracie started to dance around in that special I-gotta-go way.
"As soon as the clerk gets back with Ashley's costume."
Tj watched as a woman with a crying infant strapped to her chest, a toddler in her arms, and a preschooler on each side schlepped an armload of princess separates up to the mile-long line at the checkout stand. Tj loved Halloween, but sometimes she wondered what had happened to homemade costumes like the ones she'd worn as a child. Toss a sheet over your head, cut out a couple of eyeholes, and you were good to go. No wading through piles of dresses or spending a month's mad money on an outfit the girls would wear only once.
"Here we go." The clerk had returned from the storage room. "An Ariel costume for my redheaded princess and a Belle costume for my dark-haired princess." Both girls screamed in delight as the clerk handed them complete unopened sets of the princesses of their choice. Dress, shoes, crown, all matching, in exactly the right size.
"Anything else?" he asked.
"Thanks, but I'll just take the princess costumes for now." Tj grabbed Gracie's hand and headed toward the long line that awaited her at the checkout stand.
CHAPTER 2Fifty minutes later, Tj sat behind the registration desk of Maggie's Hideaway, waiting for the last of the weekend arrivals to check in. Echo, her hundred-and-thirty-pound mountain dog, was lying on the rug next to her, sound asleep except for the occasional whimper as he actively participated in what must be a rollicking doggy dream. After the mayhem of the day, the world once again seemed balanced and serene.
Huge picture windows lined the back wall, transporting the beauty of the lake and surrounding forest into the interior of the mountain lodge. It was a perfect fall day, cool but sunny, with just a few clouds hinting at the storm she knew was brewing over the summit. A lone coyote walked along the now-deserted beach as squirrels scurried across the wooden deck gathering pine nuts for the long winter ahead. Pouring herself a cup of coffee from the sideboard, Tj selected several ginger snaps from the tray, then wandered over to the desk to check the reservation sheet. There were three guests who hadn't checked in yet. She hoped they'd all arrive in a timely fashion, since Jenna and her daughters, Kristi and Kari, were coming for dinner and movie night. Jenna's husband Dennis, a firefighter for the Serenity Fire Department, was on duty for an overnight shift.
"Seen your dad?" Grandpa Ben walked up behind her. A mountain of a man, well over six feet with broad shoulders and a deep baritone voice. He filled the room with his presence. Dressed in dirt-stained work jeans and sturdy boots, Ben looked much younger than his sixty-eight years in spite of his head of thick white hair.
"I think he was moving boats. Why?"
"Headin' over to The Grill to help decorate for the Halloween Party next week, but we can't seem to find that box of decorations we used last year."
"Did you check the attic space above the garage?" Tj asked. "I think I saw some stuff up there. I've been meaning to get it down and decorate the house. The staff did a good job with the rest of the resort."
"Yeah, it looks real nice." The decorating crew had gone all out this year, with a pumpkin patch on the front lawn, an old-fashioned horse-drawn wagon filled with bales of hay near the resort's entrance, and brightly dressed scarecrows scattered throughout. The lobby featured garlands of brightly colored fall leaves, wreaths, and festive bouquets of seasonal flowers. "Guess I'll head over to the house and see if I can find the decorations. I'll put the stuff for the house in the mud room."
"Thanks, Grandpa."
"By the way," Ben added, "Bookman wanted me to tell you he can't make dinner this week since his agent will be in town and next Monday doesn't look good either. Guess there's a town council meeting that night. Wanted to know if we could do it another night."
Ben's friend Bookman, a.k.a. bestselling author R. L. Hellerman, was one of the five elected citizens who sat on Serenity's town council. "I thought the council meeting wasn't for another three weeks."
"It's not. At least the normal monthly town meeting isn't. There's a special session on November first to discuss the permit Lloyd Benson applied for. I guess there's some urgency for reasons of which I'm not privy, and Lloyd didn't want to wait until the regular town meeting."
"What's he tearing down now?" Tj sighed.
"He's not tearing anything down this time," Ben informed her. "He reapplied for a permit for those condos down by the lake he's been trying to build for the past couple of years."
Tj frowned. "How is he going to do that? I thought the whole thing was a no-go if he didn't have Zachary's land as an access point."
Ben shrugged. "I really don't know. Maybe Zachary finally sold."
"He wouldn't do that," Tj insisted. "He was adamant about not wanting people traipsing through his property. There must be more to the story."
Ben shrugged. "Guess you can ask Zachary about it."
Tj frowned. "Yeah, I'll stop by tomorrow." Zachary Collins was an eighty-six- year-old recluse who valued his privacy and would never sell access to his land. Would he? Surely he hadn't sold out to Lloyd after all these years.
"Guess I'll head on over to the house. What do you want me to do with the pile of pumpkins on the dining-room table?"
Tj groaned. In a moment of temporary insanity, she'd volunteered to carve twenty-five pumpkins for the annual pumpkin festival. "Sorry. I totally forgot those were being delivered today."
"I'll move them into the mud room for now," Ben volunteered.
"Thanks, Grandpa."
After Ben left, Tj greeted a pair of identical-looking sexagenarians, each carrying two bags of identical size and color. "Welcome to Maggie's Hideaway. Are you checking in?" During the summer the lobby of Maggie's Hideaway was crowded with guests checking in and out every day of the week. But during the slower shoulder seasons, roughly the three months between summer and ski season, and then again between the end of ski season and the beginning of summer, most arrivals and departures were limited to a few weekend visitors.
"Maude and Millie Morrison," the twin on the right answered.
"We won an all-expense-paid trip," the twin on the left added.
"That's great. Radio contest?" Tj smiled at the pair, each of whom looked a lot like Aunt Bea from The Andy Griffith Show. Tj hadn't even been born when the show first aired, but her Grandma Maggie used to watch the reruns on cable before she passed away.
"No," Maude answered. "We received a letter in the mail informing us we'd been chosen to receive a ten-day trip. We don't remember entering a contest, but at our age we usually can't remember what we had for breakfast."
"This isn't a time-share, is it?" Millie asked.
"No, I can assure you the trip wasn't sponsored by Maggie's Hideaway." Tj glanced at the computer screen. "The reservation simply states the cabin was prepaid in full. Perhaps the trip was sponsored by one of the casinos? They sometimes offer special incentives to seniors."
"We're not here to gamble," Maude assured her.
"We're here to meet men," Millie added.
"Well, I'll be sure to keep my eyes open for good catches." Tj smiled. "I see you're staying in cabin twelve. It's one of our nicer two-bedrooms. Right on the beach, in an isolated cove surrounded by old growth pines with its own deck and hot tub. Very private for entertaining." Tj waved over a dark-haired teenager who had wandered in while she was speaking to the women. "This is Emily," she introduced her to the sisters. "She'll show you to your cabin and answer any questions you have along the way."
"Oh, aren't you adorable," Maude gushed. Emily possessed a petite doll-like figure, huge blue eyes framed with thick dark lashes, and fistfuls of thick curly hair.
"Love your shoes," Emily complimented the two women on their shiny white Sketchers as she reached down to pick up one of their bags, causing a book to fall from the top in the process. "Twenty-five Ways to Please a Man," Emily read aloud as she picked up the book.
"Sister and I figured we were a bit late out of the starting gate so could use some advice," Maude explained.
"Just read the first five," Millie joined in. "Figured you really only need the first two, but we brought the book along just in case."
Tj and Emily looked at each other, trying not to laugh.
"Still that thing with the whipped cream sounded fun," Maude reminded her sister. "Maybe we should have brought some."
"If you decide you need it just let me know and I'll have some brought to your cabin," Tj promised.
Tj watched the group walk away. She certainly didn't want to be Maude and Millie's age and still looking for a man. After her mom died and her sisters came to live with her, she and her ex-boyfriend Tyler had parted ways. Tj knew he wasn't looking for anything serious, but it hurt that he'd tossed her aside like yesterday's laundry once it had become apparent that carefree and unencumbered were things of the past.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Pumpkins In Paradise"
by .
Copyright © 2016 Kathi Daley.
Excerpted by permission of Henery Press.
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