HELL'S HALF ACRE a gripping murder mystery full of twists (Coffin Cove Mysteries Book 2)

by JACKIE ELLIOTT

  He had stopped being jealous years ago.

  “Just the occasional expensive grope is all I get from her,” Lee muttered as he shaved.

  Ouch, shit!

  He had nicked himself. As he watched the blood drip from his chin, he gripped the washbasin with both hands, as if to stop himself falling.

  He felt a dark weight on his shoulders, and the ground seemed to shift underneath him, as though to signify an upheaval to come.

  He steadied himself, dabbed a tissue on his cut and finished his shave.

  Get a grip, Lee.

  It had all been different in the beginning. Nadine was charming and fun. He knew she liked money, and back then, before they were married, he’d had lots of cash. Business was good in those days. Lee had competed with many suitors. Nadine was pretty — round face with dimples, baby-blue eyes and a hint of mischief in her eyes. He wasn’t the first love of Nadine’s life. Well, money was her first love, he knew that now, but he wasn’t the first man either. He didn’t care. Nadine was a prize.

  Even during the first euphoria of love — or was it lust? — he’d felt a few nagging worries. Nadine was overly concerned with image. He’d bought a brand-new pickup truck, even though he’d just started the business and couldn’t really justify the extra outflow of cash. Nadine expected expensive gifts and nights out — even over to the mainland. When she said “yes” to his marriage proposal, it had cost him a small fortune to get the perfect ring. But all this made Nadine happy, and that was all he cared about.

  At first they had rented a small basement suite, but Nadine wanted something bigger. Lee had no money to buy a house, even though real estate was cheap in Coffin Cove. But with some help from his friends in the construction industry, he could build his own house. And he had one option: the overgrown piece of property belonging to his brother, Wayne.

  Wayne had been wild. Coffin Cove wasn’t big enough for him, he used to say. When he and Lee were little, they were close. They went fishing and hunting together. But when they were teenagers, Wayne drifted away. He preferred to spend his time at the old gravel pit and hung out with a biker gang. At first, the bikers were harmless. Just a bunch of guys who loved their bikes and riding together. Lee spent time at the gravel pit occasionally, but he soon felt uneasy around Wayne’s new friends.

  Wayne had also befriended Art Whilley. “The Whilley boy”, as most people called him, was seriously weird. His old man used to mend nets and splice rope for commercial fishermen. Fred Whilley was a quiet man, by all accounts, and well-liked. But his wife was a monster. Even Lee, as a child, had heard the rumours of neglect, abuse and even violence towards Art Whilley. He was a small boy for his age. Lee remembered Wayne and his friends bullying him. Art spent all his time in the schoolhouse, never playing with the other kids, just reading and reading. When the bell went for end of school, Art Whilley would scramble for the door, yank it open and run as fast as he could, with Wayne and his friends in pursuit. They thought it was a game. Lee thought it was cruel.

  Lee never made sense of how Wayne and Art came to be friends. Art Whilley eventually lived on his own by the gravel pit. His mother died, followed by his father, and all Art had left was the small dirty cabin he lived in, and the old net shed full of his father’s tools and rusty marine parts.

  Soon the biker gang were partying at Art Whilley’s house after racing up and down the quarter-mile strip of tarmac behind the gravel pit. The parties were wild and noisy. There were complaints, but the police seemed unable to do anything about it. The biker gang grew in popularity, and Lee remembered how they would leave Art’s place en masse and drive recklessly through town, throwing beer bottles when they were bored and drunk. Soon the rumble of engines on a Saturday evening was a signal for residents to go inside and lock their doors.

  After months of being terrorized by the Knights, as the biker gang now called itself, the residents started referring to Art Whilley’s place as Hell’s Half Acre.

  Lee remembered confronting his brother.

  “C’mon man, people are tired of this shit. Can’t you get them all to calm it down a bit? Talk to Art, get him to stop the parties.”

  Wayne laughed. “Not up to Art anymore, bro. I own Hell’s Half Acre now.”

  “How come?” Lee asked, suspicious. He was sure Wayne hadn’t bought it legitimately, although his brother was always throwing around wads of cash. Lee had long suspected Wayne was dealing harder drugs than just the odd joint.

  Wayne laughed. “Won it in a poker game, man. Lighten up a bit. Come to a party, you’ll have fun. There’s more than beer, if you know what I mean.” He winked at Lee.

  Lee knew what he meant. He meant weed and drugs and girls. Even Nadine. She was up there often, partying and doing God knows what. Wayne must have read his mind because he punched his brother in the shoulder.

  “Still sad about Nadine? Tell you what, I’ll get her back for you.”

  Lee wanted her back. He couldn’t help it. So when she knocked at his door a week later and fixed him with those blue eyes, he’d welcomed her back. Nadine was his girl. Lee wiped from his mind any thoughts of who she’d been with and what she’d done, and even why she was back. It was a fresh start.

  Shortly after that, a fire broke out at Hell’s Half Acre. The cabin burned to the ground. Art’s body was never recovered, but many of the subdued partygoers testified he’d been inside. Lee discovered Wayne hadn’t been joking. He was the registered owner of the property. Coffin Cove City, sensing an opportunity to rid the community of the biker gang, the drug problem and a nuisance property all in one go, sued Wayne Dagg.

  But Wayne was gone. He’d left Coffin Cove without paying the city a penny. He didn’t say goodbye to Lee, just moved on. The biker gang dispersed too, and the community heaved a collective sigh of relief.

  Brambles and weeds soon consumed the scorched earth at Hell’s Half Acre.

  Lee had to pay some outstanding property taxes when he applied for a building permit for Hell’s Half Acre. The disinterested clerk who handed him the paperwork didn’t seem to care the property belonged to Wayne.

  Over the next six months, Lee worked early in the morning and late at night to clear the land and build a small two-bedroom house. It wasn’t elaborate, but it was new, and Lee had saved enough money to buy some new furniture. The net shed was the only reminder of the past and Lee intended to replace it with a brand-new workshop for his electrical business.

  One evening, Lee persuaded Nadine to go for a drive. They left Coffin Cove and drove up towards the highway. When Lee took the left turn towards the gravel pit, Nadine stared at him.

  “Why are we going this way?” she demanded. “I want to go back.”

  It hadn’t been the celebration Lee was hoping for.

  “Are you insane?” Nadine screamed at him when Lee explained what he’d done. “You want me to live at Hell’s Half Acre?”

  She’d sobbed, and Lee, bewildered, tried to calm her down.

  “It won’t be Hell,” he’d whispered, hugging her tight. “We’ll make it Heaven.” The words sounded corny, even to him.

  Finally, Nadine agreed to move in. But things went downhill from there. The economy collapsed in Coffin Cove, and even though Lee would drive anywhere on the island for a booking, many other electricians were looking for the same work.

  Nadine managed to get an administrative job at City Hall but fell pregnant with Katie. She didn’t want a baby. She screamed and blamed Lee for their financial predicament and threatened to have an abortion. Lee begged her not to, and to this day, he didn’t know why she didn’t.

  Gradually things got back on an even keel. Lee picked up a few contracts from the city. He suspected Dennis Havers pushed the work his way to please Nadine. He’d seen the way Dennis leered at his wife. But they needed the money.

  Now, Nadine seemed focused on spending everything he earned. She had a good wage from her job, but Lee knew she squirrelled that money away. In the last year, Nadine had run up
his credit card bills and emptied the savings account. She’d spent money on her breasts, her belly dancing outfits and trips to Seattle with her dance troop, and even put a deposit on a brand-new car.

  It was getting too much to bear. Maybe Nadine had been right. It was insane to live at Hell’s Half Acre. Lee wasn’t superstitious, but it felt like his life was cursed.

  He looked at himself in the mirror. Where had that energetic young man gone? What was left for him now? Katie, he reminded himself. How could he think his life was cursed when he had Katie? He was so happy to have his daughter back, and he was proud of her new job but worried she had returned just for him.

  Thinking of Katie always made him smile. He loved working at the museum with her. She was full of creative ideas for the old building, and already he was looking forward to the grand opening. It would do Katie good to be in the spotlight for once.

  The sound of a car leaving the driveway reminded him that Nadine wouldn’t enjoy any attention being showered on Katie. She’d never had time for her daughter. Now Katie was home and all grown up, he’d noticed Nadine staring at her daughter with a weird expression on her face. Was she jealous? What kind of mother is jealous of their own kid?

  He dried off his face with a towel and went into the bedroom. Nadine had left clothes strewn on the floor and the bed unmade. Lee tidied around and pulled the bedclothes straight before hunting around for a clean shirt. Nadine was making a point of not doing any housework since he’d fired the expensive housekeeper in an effort to keep his bank account in the black.

  Giving up his search, he pulled on the least grubby T-shirt he could find and gathered up all the dirty clothes to fill the washing machine. He’d have to talk to Katie. Maybe she could help out. He knew she wouldn’t mind. For a second, he had a vision of himself and his daughter in their own place.

  “What the hell?” he said out loud. What was wrong with him? Katie deserved her own life. Shaking his head at his own selfishness, Lee grabbed up more dirty laundry for the washer and left the bedroom.

  Lee turned on the machine and listened to the gushing water. He didn’t feel like working today. He had things left to do at the museum, and he wondered for a second if, afterwards, he and Katie could take the afternoon off and go on a road trip somewhere, like they did when she was a kid. He used to take her with him when he had work in different parts of the island. He wanted her to see a world outside of Coffin Cove. He wanted her to escape someday. Like he dreamed of doing.

  His mind wandered back to those days. He had never wanted to be an electrician like his dad. He wanted to get off the island and go to Alberta. Work in the oilfields, maybe. Leave like Wayne had. Why hadn’t he done that? There had been a chance, but then there was Nadine smiling at him, wanting a pretty wedding dress and a diamond ring, taking his breath away.

  He sighed. How things had changed.

  Lee turned to leave the laundry room. He caught sight of a sparkly ribbon caught in the closet door. It looked like a Christmas decoration. Lee pulled the door open to get a closer look.

  “Damn you, Nadine,” he shouted.

  Hanging in the closet was Nadine’s brand new belly dancing outfit. She hadn’t bothered to remove the price tag.

  Just about a month’s income. The dress glittered at him and Lee felt like ripping it to shreds with a knife. Didn’t Nadine care about anyone except herself?

  Lee knew the answer to that. He couldn’t go on like this. It had to end.

  Chapter Six

  Jade Thompson looked out of her office window, the only one in the building facing the ocean. She felt her spirits lift. Warmer, brighter weather was on its way. The sun felt warm through the office window, and Jade stood there for a moment, enjoying the peace of the early morning.

  Jade allowed herself some optimism. It might be a new beginning for Coffin Cove. At last. So far, legal struggles and tough financial negotiations had overshadowed her tenure as the new mayor of Coffin Cove. But it had been worth it.

  Coffin Cove had been in an economic mess for as long as Jade could remember. The heady days of the fishing and forestry booms were long over. Coffin Cove had squandered every penny, it seemed, with nothing left for a rainy day, and no means of raising any more cash from the struggling residents and business owners — those few who remained, anyway.

  Jade wondered, not for the first time, what on earth she had been thinking when she announced her candidacy for mayor.

  It had been a difficult few months.

  Fired up with determination, Jade had worked hard at her campaign. She knocked on every door in Coffin Cove, handed out leaflets, pledged to do her very best and smiled winningly at sceptical voters. She promised she would reinvent the town, attracting tourists and developers, and most importantly, jobs. She reassured the community there would be an end to the shady backhanders and dodgy deals rumoured to be the “business model” of the incumbent mayor and his inner circle. People at least listened, and at the end of the campaign Jade was hopeful of the outcome and certain she could not have done any more. But despite her hard work, she was as astounded as both her opponents and supporters when the results of the mayoral race were announced and Dennis Havers’ reign as mayor of Coffin Cove was finally over.

  Jade Thompson was both the youngest and the first female mayor to serve Coffin Cove.

  After election day and the celebration at Hephzibah’s café, the headquarters of the Thompson campaign, Jade was officially sworn in. But then it rained. As the euphoria of winning wore off and the enormity of the task ahead of her became apparent, the dark grey days reminded Jade of all the reasons she’d left Coffin Cove years ago.

  Not that Jade doubted her ability as mayor. She was smart — not just academically, but street-smart too. She’d learned how to be cunning, how to be patient, how to gently talk people into doing things her way, even if they didn’t want to. No, Jade was a natural politician. It was abandoning her privacy that Jade feared most. Her ability to fade into the background. It had been an effective survival technique, and without it, Jade felt exposed.

  On her first day, Jade made a brief speech to the staff at City Hall. The small crowd dutifully clapped, but Jade saw suspicion and scepticism on some faces, mostly from the staff who’d been employed there for years. She saw the raised eyebrows and exchanged glances as she laid out the way she would run the show from now on.

  “The past is the past,” she’d said. “Nobody will be blamed or judged for what went on before. From this day—” she looked meaningfully at the silent staff — “we will have one mission only: to serve the people of Coffin Cove. They pay us. We work for them. Every project, every decision, every dollar spent will be in pursuit of that mission. Everyone who understands that and works towards that mission will continue to have a job. If there are people who have a different agenda — well, at some point, they’ll be looking for alternative employment.”

  Jade saw the odd smirk. She knew it would be an uphill battle. But she smiled and told herself they would soon see she was serious and capable. Jade was used to being underestimated. People glanced at her forgettable face, obscured by large glasses, and mentally categorized her as a coffee girl or filing clerk, if they didn’t know better. Jade didn’t mind. She liked the look of shock on the faces of self-important corporate types when she arranged her files, her notebook and her tablet at the head of the table and called meetings to order. She laughed inwardly when men in suits shifted in their chairs and attempted to keep up with her rapid absorption of facts and figures and her quick-fire questions. She liked that she could be unobtrusive. She heard things. People told her things, things they shouldn’t, not realizing she internally filed every scrap of information. Jade had an amazing memory and a meticulous attention to detail.

  Jade’s focus was born out of a disability she kept hidden. She was dyslexic.

  She had hated school when she was little. She was plain, needed braces and wore large glasses. The kids mostly ignored her unless she was called
upon to read out loud in class. Jade couldn’t understand why the words and letters seemed to swim around in front of her, swirling into a jumbled mess when she tried to read. The mean kids laughed at her. Time after time, she’d sink down into her chair, flushed with shame and humiliation. It was years before Jade was diagnosed. Until then, she’d trained herself to memorize pages and pages of textbooks and assignments, so she could stand and recite whole passages, keeping her eyes trained on the pages, so nobody knew she wasn’t reading. She learned to study in-depth, paying attention to detail. Jade was always prepared, her tasks well-researched, so when she looked around at her new staff, she already had a good idea of who would stay and who would look for a new job.

  The run for mayor, uncharacteristically for Jade, was conceived in a flash of anger. More than just anger, Jade acknowledged. It was rage — rage at injustice, which had accumulated over decades.

  Summer Thompson, Jade’s mother, moved to Coffin Cove in the eighties, a refugee from the freewheeling chaotic days of the previous heady decade.

  She was a “blow-in”, as the locals called the drifters, artists and get-rich-quick schemers who materialized when Coffin Cove’s economy boomed. Summer was a talented artist, pretty and engaging, and Jade grew up surrounded by bohemian people who talked art, politics and philosophy late into the night. They mostly took no notice of the plain little girl with her nose in a book.

  Although Jade didn’t know her father, she never wanted for love or fun. Summer took her on camping trips to the beach, where they’d collect driftwood and shells for art projects, and roast hotdogs over a fire. Jade had her best memories of Coffin Cove from those times, the sun slipping down behind the cliffs, Summer and Jade huddled under a blanket until it was pitch dark. For a while, the two of them had lived on Hope Island, a tiny community of women who created a commune of sorts.

  Jade liked to think of them as a duo battling against the world. She’d arrange Summer’s finished pieces in the yard to attract sales from the trickle of tourists in the summer and make sure her mother ate when she was especially engrossed in her art. Summer encouraged Jade’s academic progress. “My little professor,” Summer used to say fondly to her daughter. And, “You’re smart. You can do anything, go anywhere. Get away from Coffin Cove and make something of your life.” She’d saved as much cash as possible for Jade to go to college.