He reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “Thanks, Andi. It’s good to see you.”
Andi held out her arm for Sandra Havers. The heartbroken mother took it and leaned on Andi a little as they made their way back along the beach. She hardly weighed anything, Andi thought, like a frail bird.
But Sandra’s grip was strong.
“Andi. I know it’s Ricky. I feel it. I’m his mother, and I know he’s dead.” Her voice was stronger. She sounded angry. “Why didn’t they damn well do something? Why didn’t they search for him when I asked? I begged them to. My boy would still be here now.” And she broke down again, sobbing and leaning against Andi.
“Sandra, I’m so sorry.” Andi didn’t argue with Sandra. She thought the same. Why hadn’t they searched more thoroughly? It was a question needing an answer.
They reached the boardwalk and Sandra disentangled her arm from Andi’s.
“Will you promise me something, Andi?” Sandra asked.
“If I can.”
“Promise me you’ll do everything to find out what happened to my son? Even if it leads you to Dennis? I have to know, Andi, I just have to.”
“I promise I will do that, Sandra.”
Slowly they walked to Hephzibah’s. Dennis stood in the doorway and beckoned to Sandra. She held out a shaky hand and patted Andi on the shoulder before walking over to her husband’s side.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Andi watched Sandra walk away with Dennis, his arm firmly around her shoulder. She wondered if Sandra was going home with a murderer.
Because one thing was certain. If it was Ricky they’d found, he’d definitely been killed. Why else would Inspector Andrew Vega be in Coffin Cove?
Chapter Eleven
Coffin Cove gravel pit.
Muscle cars, old beaters and souped-up trucks idled and revved up on one end of a stretch of road behind the disused gravel pit, just a mile out of town. There had been plans for an airport right here back in the day, but now there was only this tarmac strip that led nowhere. At the other end, bikers lined up their beasts in perfect symmetry. There was no rivalry. This was no stand-off. There was simply no place else to go.
Here, the testosterone and sweat of Coffin Cove’s bored youth mingled with diesel fumes and the stench of weed. It was sweltering. The bikers had already discarded their leathers and were burning up and down in T-shirts.
Hanging out at the gravel pit was one of two alternatives for Lee Dagg. It was either this or the drive-in movies. But there was some fuckin’ chick flick on and his girl had blown him off, so here he was, hanging out with the usual losers, as they fussed over Harry’s piece-of-shit Chevy. Everyone knew everyone here. They all hung out, sitting on tailgates, swilling cheap beers and smoking home-grown weed. Occasionally a couple of the muscle car boys would race, spinning tyres and kicking up dust and rubber, sometimes competing with the bikes. Then drunken assholes would start a fight. Sometimes a cop car would drive by, slowly, reminding them to keep the noise down. No one really bothered them. There was fuck-all to do in Coffin Cove, and besides, generations of youth had congregated here. Where else would they go?
Lee took a drag on his cigarette and flicked the ash away.
It was a sticky evening after a hot sultry day, and the heat hung down in the pit, unmoved by any breeze. Lee reached into the back of Harry’s Chevy and found a cold beer.
He was bored.
Bored with this evening, bored with Harry and Walt, bored with his job. He was sick of his old man riding his ass about apprenticeships and carrying on the family business. He didn’t want the fucking business. He wanted out of here. Out of Coffin Cove, and off the island. He wanted to make some real money. Maybe he would go up north. Or go to the oil patch. Make a shitload of cash, and buy a decent truck, buy a house on the mainland, get a girl . . .
He was broken out of his daydream by the low throaty growl of an engine.
He looked around.
A Mustang crunched over the gravel. Low-slung, tinted windows, red shiny paint job.
Unheard of in Coffin Cove, a town of rust buckets and reclaimed beaters from the scrapyard.
Even the bikers moved to get a closer look.
The car came to a stop, and a girl got out the passenger side.
Fuck.
Nadine.
Lee ground his cigarette into the gravel, looking down long enough to get his emotions in check.
“So you got a better offer, then?” he called out to Nadine.
She flicked her hair and smiled at Lee, unconcerned.
“I guess,” she answered.
A slim figure got out of the driver’s side. Lee didn’t recognize him. He had almost white blonde hair and pale skin, as if he had been shielded from sunlight his whole life. As if to confirm this, he reached inside his pockets and put on mirrored sunglasses that covered most of his face.
In contrast to the redneck uniform of scuffed blue jeans and grimy sleeveless T-shirts, the newcomer was wearing immaculate chinos, suede boots and a chequered short-sleeve shirt.
“Holy shit!”
Harry stood at Lee’s shoulder.
“You know who that is?”
“Some asshole who moved in on my girlfriend?”
“Nope. Well, yeah, but it’s also Art Whilley.”
“I don’t give a fuck who it is . . .” Lee pulled out another cigarette, lit it and walked over.
“Hey Nadine, what the fuck . . . ?”
Before he could finish his sentence, another car pulled into the pit. Lee groaned again.
Dennis Havers was driving. He stayed in the car and Lee’s older brother Wayne got out of the passenger side.
“This your car?” he sneered, indicating the Mustang and addressing Art Whilley.
“Yep. You got a problem with that?” His voice was high-pitched, like a young boy.
“No. I’ve got a problem with that . . .” Wayne nodded at Nadine.
Lee said, “Wayne, leave it.”
“No fuckin’ way, he’s screwing your girl!”
A small crowd had gathered round the Mustang. Tension was in the air. A fight was coming.
Nadine, playing to the crowd, leaned against the Mustang, her shirt undone a little too far.
“Hey Wayne, how’s it going?” She smiled at the older boy, not caring about his angry expression.
Lee watched, first in disgust, and then more intently, as Art reached into the Mustang and tossed a piece of card or paper to Wayne with a small nod of his head.
“That what you want?” Art Whilley asked, not appearing intimidated at all.
Wayne’s demeanour changed.
“Sure. We just stopped by to say hi. Have a nice evening.”
Lee stared as his older brother got back in the car and Dennis accelerated out of the gravel pit, churning up enough dust to choke the disappointed crowd.
“What the hell was that?” Lee asked Nadine angrily.
She didn’t answer, just shrugged and tossed her hair again before she and Art left in the Mustang, leaving Lee looking bewildered.
“Don’t sweat it, Lee. She’s just trying to fuck with you. Ignore her.” Harry patted him on the shoulder.
But Lee wasn’t listening. He walked over to where the Mustang had been parked and crouched down. He spied what he had been looking for, a piece of card Art had dropped when he was talking to Wayne.
“How the fuck do you think he can afford that Mustang?” Walt was asking.
Lee stood there for a minute, fingering the piece of cardboard in his hand.
“I don’t know. But I bet it has something to do with this.”
Chapter Twelve
PC Matt Beaufort had never been involved in a major crime case before.
Coffin Cove was his first posting as a fully-fledged member of the RCMP, Canada’s national police force. Initially, Matt had been disappointed at being sent to this quiet backwater. After twenty-six weeks of basic training in the middle of Saskatchewan, followe
d by six months’ on-the-job instruction in Whitehorse, the capital of Canada’s Yukon territory, Matt had applied to join the Surrey detachment on mainland British Columbia. He needed the experience of a metropolis, he thought. He needed gangland shootings and drug cartels to replace road traffic collisions with moose and illegal whiskey stills. But the Surrey detachment was in an uproar as the residents had voted to create their own municipal police force, so they diverted Matt to Coffin Cove.
Matt Beaufort wasn’t the type of man to sulk. He’d joined up to serve, and even if Coffin Cove couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the RCMP, as Sergeant Charlie Rollins informed him on his first day, he would still dedicate himself to the RCMP mission: preserve the peace, uphold the law and provide quality service to the community he served.
Charlie Rollins had been the sergeant at Coffin Cove detachment for over thirty years. He’d seen constables come and go. He was waiting for retirement, and now that Mayor Jade Thompson was shaking things up — unnecessarily, in Charlie’s view — his pension cheque couldn’t come quick enough. He’d preferred Dennis Havers, who often dropped off a bottle of Crown Royal, Charlie’s favourite tipple, and clapped him on the back for a job well done. After all, turning a blind eye was Charlie’s expert skill.
When Matt Beaufort reported for duty, Charlie looked him up and down, amused at the young man’s enthusiasm.
“There’s only three types of criminals we have to worry about in Coffin Cove,” he told the new constable, “draft dodgers, dopeheads and drunkards. The draft dodgers are all old hippies eating their granola, we don’t have to worry about the dopeheads anymore now that weed’s legal, so you’ll mainly be cleaning up after the drunks.”
He was right. In the first week, Matt spent most days hosing down the RCMP cruiser, cleaning off the vomit from another inebriated “client”.
Lily, Matt’s wife, encouraged him to use his initiative.
“Just because old Charlie sits with his feet up all day, doesn’t mean you have to,” she told him. Matt knew she was right. So he “patrolled” the streets of Coffin Cove, popping his head into businesses and shaking hands with the fishermen down at the docks. He might not be catching Canada’s most wanted, but he stopped a teenager grabbing a kid’s bike from an open garage and the wharf manager was happy that diesel theft was down.
But yesterday was different.
First, they got the call from a frantic Mr Gomich, who said he and his hiking companions had found a body. It was all a blur of activity after that. Charlie Rollins, visibly agitated, wanted to look at the remains for himself, to make absolutely certain it wasn’t a dead bear they’d found. Matt thought they should call in backup from Nanaimo right away, but he deferred to his sergeant.
They left the detachment and headed up to the gravel pit. There, Mr Gomich, an elderly woman with silver-white hair who refused to talk to him, and a younger lady, who identified herself as Katie Dagg, were waiting. Katie looked shaky. Charlie told Matt to wait while he and Mr Gomich disappeared down a trail. Nearly an hour later, the two men emerged. White-faced, the sergeant told Matt not only was the body human, he was sure it was Ricky Havers.
“There are bits of clothing still there,” he said, wiping beads of sweat off his face after the hike in and out of the woods. “I’m pretty sure they match the description of the clothes Ricky was wearing when he vanished.”
Matt hadn’t been at Coffin Cove when Ricky Havers went missing. But he heard about it when he arrived. Apart from a murder investigation a year ago, the disappearance of Ricky Havers was the highest-profile case the small detachment had dealt with in recent years.
There wasn’t much the RCMP could do. Ricky Havers was forty-two years old. There were rumours he’d been selling more than just legal weed. Maybe he’d strayed onto someone else’s patch? Pissed off the wrong people? Or maybe one day he’d just woken up and decided there was more to life than selling weed to dopeheads in this tiny backwater.
Matt Beaufort thought it was probably drug dealers who had abducted Ricky. Nanaimo, the nearest big town to Coffin Cove, was in the midst of a drug crisis. Opioids were bad enough, but for months the Nanaimo detachment had been besieged with calls about crazed teenagers attacking people with knives or attempting to “fly out of windows”. Four deaths had been attributed to a new street drug called “Duke”. It was a hallucinogenic, according to the circular sent to all the detachments. It was similar to LSD but caused extreme paranoia and psychotic rages. Matt read and carefully filed all the information he could find and kept an eye out on his daily patrols. Nanaimo officers were also reporting a new street jargon associated with the drug. Dealers required a “tithe” rather than a “payment” and referred to themselves as “Knights”. Matt had heard nothing like that in Coffin Cove, but he wondered if Ricky Havers had sold Duke from the Smoke House. Maybe he hadn’t paid his tithe? The dates fit. Ricky had disappeared around the same time as Nanaimo officers noticed the new drug.
Matt put his theory to Charlie.
Charlie Rollins dismissed it immediately. “Ricky was a layabout his whole life. Dennis was giving him a last chance. I bet he realized he couldn’t even run a weed store and disappeared in embarrassment. He’ll be back, you’ll see.”
And now Ricky was back.
In fact, Matt thought, he hadn’t ever left.
As Charlie Rollins panted from his exertion and the small group at the gravel pit processed the horror of their discovery, Matt mentally calculated that Ricky Havers’ corpse was less than ten kilometres away from where he’d disappeared. And numerous search parties had missed it.
“Shit,” Sergeant Rollins said, as the enormity of the discovery and the possible implications for his imminent retirement started to sink in.
Matt saw that Charlie wasn’t just shocked, he was scared. He wondered if Charlie had ever really conducted “extensive searches” for Ricky. Had the lazy, complacent officer just put up a few posters?
“Maybe the body was moved there, sir,” Matt said evenly. There would be time enough for blame. “Forensics should be able to tell.”
His sergeant nodded slowly, as if weighing up this possibility, and said, “You’re right, son. The things those crime scene guys can find out, it’s amazing,” and he seemed to cheer up a little as he and Matt taped off the scene and waited for the coroner and backup from Nanaimo.
Soon after the coroner began her work, she appeared, looking grim, and made a call to the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team stationed on the mainland. She didn’t know yet if it was a homicide, but it was more than possible the remains were Ricky Havers’, although more work would need to be done before final confirmation. As the case of the missing man was already flagged as something IHIT had an interest in, she explained, she was calling in a team from the mainland.
Matt was in awe. IHIT was legendary. Only the most talented officers joined this specialized unit. They’d created IHIT back in 2004, after a catalogue of failures allowed a notorious serial killer to evade the RCMP long enough to murder over twenty women. After that, the RCMP made sure IHIT had access to limitless expertise and resources to investigate the worst crimes in British Columbia and bring the perpetrators to justice.
They didn’t take long to arrive. Ahead of the IHIT team arriving in Coffin Cove, Inspector Andrew Vega had joined the coroner at the scene earlier today, just twenty-four hours after the remains had been discovered. The forensics team were hard at work. It was clear to Matt that Inspector Vega was a man used to being in charge, as he quickly assessed the situation and assigned Matt to guard the trail leading to the scene of the discovery. The coroner would continue working with forensics, and when (and if) she deemed the death a homicide, the rest of the IHIT team would arrive and set up base for the investigation at the Coffin Cove detachment. Vega was quiet but had an air of authority which made even Charlie draw himself to attention when taking directions from this polite man.
For the entire day, the scene was invaded by ghostly figures in
white suits, gliding around, examining, bagging and labelling the smallest items from the scene, anything that might help the investigating officers determine without doubt that this poor dead soul was indeed Ricky Havers, and the precise nature of his death.
Confirmation came later that evening. There was no doubt. It was definitely Ricky Havers, and Matt was now working his first homicide case.
Matt listened as Inspector Vega informed local officers. The mood was sombre.
“Forensics will continue at the site for another night, at least,” Vega said. “I will inform the family after this meeting. We will make a public announcement to the press tomorrow morning. There is nothing more we can do tonight, so please go home. Tomorrow my full team will arrive. Get some sleep because it will be a long day tomorrow. And—” his voice sharpened — “I shouldn’t have to tell any of you: do not divulge any information to anyone, got it?”
There were nods and murmurs from the listening men and women as they dispersed, leaving PC Matt Beaufort to lock and alarm the detachment.
A tragic day for the Haverses, he thought, as he remembered the distraught mother from earlier. He watched Charlie Rollins walk away from the detachment. He had a dejected air about him and almost shuffled along. Charlie had hardly said a word since they left the gravel pit. Matt had seen him talking urgently into his cell phone just before the briefing, but Charlie wouldn’t even meet Matt’s eyes. He didn’t even say goodnight as he left.
Matt felt sorry for Charlie. His days were numbered, Matt was sure. But he was at the beginning of his career. And tomorrow would be the start of some proper police work, he thought as he backed out the parking lot and drove home.
Chapter Thirteen
Inspector Vega arrived at the Wilson Motel after ten. He’d made time earlier in the day to collect a key from Peggy Wilson, who greeted him like an old friend.
“Welcome back to Coffin Cove, Inspector. Sorry it’s in such sad circumstances,” she said, fishing for information.
HELL'S HALF ACRE a gripping murder mystery full of twists (Coffin Cove Mysteries Book 2) Page 10
