COFFIN COVE a gripping murder mystery full of twists (Coffin Cove Mysteries Book 1)

by JACKIE ELLIOTT

  “Was anyone hurt here?” Andi ignored Jim’s sarcasm.

  “No, Joe shut down operations immediately. A few days later, Coffin Cove was swarming with so-called eco-terrorists, led by our friend out there.” Jim gestured towards the marina.

  “So what happened?”

  “Well,” Jim paused, looking down into his coffee cup, seemingly lost in memories for a moment, “it was a difficult time. Mason recruited some young people in the town, who were only too happy to hang out at blockades . . . You might have noticed, there’s not too much for teenagers to do in this town,” Jim added wryly, “and Joe kept attempting to negotiate with anyone who would listen. But the environmentalists wanted the whole show shut down, and the band wanted to take over the entire operation. And this is the weird thing—” Jim shifted forward in his chair — “Mason always seemed to be one step ahead of Joe. Every time Joe set up a meeting, Mason knew about it.”

  “Someone on the inside,” Andi said. “But why all the focus on Joe’s operation? There had to have been other logging companies clear-cutting at the time?”

  “Yes, but none as big as Joe’s and still privately owned.”

  Andi drained her coffee. “So who was paying Mason?”

  “A large American corporation, we think. But we were too late. Joe sold before we could find evidence.”

  “He sold?” Andi was surprised. “Why?”

  “Here’s the tragic part. And the reason it’s such a big deal that Mason’s back.”

  Jim ran his finger through his hair and looked tired for a moment.

  “Joe’s daughter, Sarah, went missing. Joe thought she was just acting up and hanging out at the blockades — you know what teenagers are like, anything for a bit of excitement. But she didn’t come home, so he called the police. They searched for days. But they suspected she might have been taken by the eco-terrorists.”

  “What, you mean kidnapped?”

  Jim nodded. “Yes, but there was no ransom demand. And then—” he paused and looked down — “her body washed up on the beach.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” Andi could see Jim was getting emotional.

  “Yes.” He sat up and looked Andi in the eye. “It was definitely foul play. They tied her legs and arms.”

  “Oh no.”

  Andi and Jim sat silent for a moment. Andi had questions but waited respectfully until Jim spoke again.

  “It devastated Joe. Sarah was his only child.”

  “There must have been an investigation?”

  “Yes. It hit the town hard. Everyone knew Sarah, she was well liked, she lived with her mother most of the time — she and Joe split up when Sarah was little. She got on well with Joe . . .” Jim paused.

  “But?” Andi prompted him.

  “She didn’t like his new wife much. But that’s normal, I guess. The popular opinion was Sarah was abducted and something went wrong.”

  “Abducted by the protestors? That’s pretty drastic,” Andi thought out loud.

  “Not for those bastards.”

  Andi was so lost in thought she hadn’t noticed someone behind her.

  “Harry.” Jim gestured to a large man who had overheard Andi’s musing. “Sit down. This is Andi, the Gazette’s new reporter.”

  Harry pulled up a chair. Andi could see he was a fisherman. He was wearing overalls and boots, the same as the crowd on the dock earlier. Even sitting, Harry towered over them. He looked familiar to Andi, but she couldn’t place him.

  “Those bastards thought it was OK to spike trees and put loggers’ lives in danger, you reckon they’d think twice about taking a kid?” he asked. He was matter-of-fact, not ranting, but he looked directly at her and held her gaze, waiting for a response.

  “Harry—” Hephzibah interrupted them with coffee refills — “leave the girl alone. She wasn’t here, she doesn’t know what it was like.”

  Andi realized why Harry seemed familiar. He and Hephzibah could have been twins — except that he was built powerfully and she was tall and graceful, like a dancer. And Harry was clearly older — in his fifties, Andi estimated.

  “My big brother,” Hephzibah confirmed. “He’s quite direct,” she added unnecessarily.

  “So, what was it like?” Andi asked. “Was there evidence that the protestors — and Mason — were involved? And if so, what is he doing here now?”

  “He’s getting paid.” Jim answered the last part of Andi’s question first. “And no, there was no direct evidence. We couldn’t link him to the American company that bought out McIntosh. We found out he was recruiting and paying protestors. Every Wednesday, they would all disappear. Turns out that Mason was bussing them back to Victoria, so they could pick up their welfare cheque. The police questioned him but couldn’t find any link to Sarah. Then they received a tip-off that Sarah and Mason were seen together just before she vanished. There was still no evidence that he had anything to do with her disappearance or murder, but there were no other leads. Then the rumour mill took over. Maybe Mason seduced Sarah and it all went wrong — that kind of thing. It was a bad time.”

  “And he’s back in Coffin Cove,” Andi said. “Doesn’t seem like something a guilty man would do, right?”

  “He’s an arrogant prick,” Harry grunted. “Doesn’t mean anything.”

  “So why would he get involved in a sea lion shooting?” Andi asked, feeling confused.

  “It’s not just the sea lions. His Black OPS have been phoning in minor safety issues and infractions, meaning that some fishermen are tied to the dock for a day or so, rather than fishing.”

  “OK, I get that,” Andi said. “But who is he working for, and why do they want to disrupt your fishing?” She was getting impatient.

  “Don’t know,” said Harry. “Could be the Americans. They’re always whining.”

  “Fish farms?” Jim suggested.

  “Could be them too.” Harry shrugged.

  “Fish farms?” Andi asked.

  “Great big pens in the ocean where they breed mutant fish and sell them to people who don’t know better,” Harry answered sarcastically.

  “I know what fish farms are, thanks,” Andi replied, thinking it was a bit rich of Harry to be accusing anyone else of being an arrogant prick. “I would have thought eco-terrorists would be more concerned about fish farms than a couple of sea lions being shot.”

  Harry shrugged again. “Well, you guys are the investigators,” he said, standing up. “I’m going to see Joe tomorrow morning. It’s best he knows about Mason being back in town from a friend, not town gossip.”

  “Joe still lives in town?” Andi asked, surprised again.

  “Where would he go?” Harry responded. “All his friends and family are here.”

  “Good idea.” Jim got up too. “Let me know how he is.” He turned to Andi. “Let’s talk about this in the office tomorrow, it’s getting late.”

  The three of them said their goodbyes to Hephzibah, who was waiting to close up, and they stood for a minute in the dusk outside the café.

  Harry looked at Andi. “You’re staying at the Fat Chicken?” For a moment, Andi thought he was offering to walk her home.

  “Yes, but—”

  “Thought so. Saw you in the bar last night.” Harry walked away, leaving his disapproval hanging in the air.

  “Told you,” Jim said to Andi. “Everyone knows everyone else’s business around here.”

  Didn’t help Sarah, did it? Andi nearly said. But she thought better of it and kept her mouth shut.

  Chapter Six

  Joe carefully moved his ashtray, a packet of smokes and stained coffee cup so they lined up on the rusty metal fold-up table, next to his chair on his deck. He sat in his faded armchair, facing the view of Coffin Cove from high on this vantage point, as he did every day.

  Anyone observing him — and there were few people who came near him these days — would see a near-motionless man, gazing into the distance, only moving to sip coffee or rye, light a cigarette, smoke it and stu
b it out. He smoked a pack a day, drank half a bottle of whiskey, ate a sandwich or two (only to stop Tara, his wife, from nagging him) and maintained the same robotic schedule every day. Up early (he only slept a couple of hours every night), straight to his chair in the same spot, wait out the daylight hours and then back to bed.

  It was an existence. Joe knew that Tara stayed out of a sense of duty. Maybe pity? He wished she wouldn’t. It was an extra layer of guilt that he didn’t need.

  Although he was physically deteriorating — his goal was to hasten his death — his mind would not stop. He could not turn off the constant stream of consciousness, a daily playback of moments and scenes from his life.

  He was going mad, but the madness was safe.

  One night he was shaken awake by Tara and found that he was sitting on the side of his bed.

  “You were driving the tractor in your sleep!” she told him in amazement. “Operating the bucket and steering and everything.”

  He nodded miserably, sad that she had woken him. In his half-sleeping dream state, he was back forty years ago when he first purchased this property. Before . . . everything else.

  Prime real estate, he told everyone proudly back then, when he paid cash for these three acres on top of a hill.

  It took two years to pound in a driveway through all the rock and drill two wells before blasting and excavating to pour a foundation. Joseph did much of the work himself, operating the heavy machinery far into the night, pouring cement, framing, nailing, roofing, building his vision with his own hands. Nobody but Joseph had seen the potential in this rocky outcrop on top of the cliff. He was used to being underestimated. Nobody had seen the potential in Joseph either. A logger’s son who wanted more than a life living paycheque to paycheque and getting drunk Friday through to Monday in the Timberlands Pub.

  So he paid attention. He worked longer hours, turning up earlier than anyone in the morning, clear-headed and ready for work. At first, the old-timers treated him like any other greenhorn. His first day, they teamed him up with a wiry old goat of a logger. Unwashed and reeking of stale booze, he grabbed armfuls of equipment, taking an eighty-pound haulback block for gathering up the logging cables himself, and handing Joe the axe, cable strap and “Molly Hogan”, a small piece of cable used for joining logging lines. The old guy eyed him, a cigarette hanging out one side of his mouth.

  “Up there,” he gestured to a vertical climb up the side of the mountain. Joe considered himself in good shape. He followed the old guy for about five minutes before he was gasping for breath. The old man stopped and grabbed the strap from Joe and added it to his load. Ten minutes later and Joe’s lungs were burning as he struggled to keep up. The old guy hummed tunelessly as he scrambled over logs, looking back occasionally to check on Joseph. Just once he waited for Joe to reach him. Bent over double and wheezing, Joe stopped for a moment, only to find that he was choking on a pungent whiskey fart that the old man had timed perfectly. By the time they reached the top, Joe was carrying nothing except the Molly Hogan.

  It took him six weeks to match the old logger stride for stride. After that he was part of the crew. He never missed a day, was never late and never had a hangover. He took every training course and learned everything he could about all the equipment.

  Six years later he had enough money to apply for a timber claim. He didn’t take a paycheque for a year. Three more years and McIntosh Logging was a going concern.

  Joe let his memories wander back over the years, recalling each detail, fitting the pieces of his life together, as if watching a documentary in his mind.

  There he was, sweating in the excavator, wiping dust out of his eyes.

  There he was, on his deck for the first time, laughing in delight at the view of the ocean.

  There he was, with Sue, cuddling in bed, watching the sunrise on their first morning as a married couple.

  There he was, holding Sarah for the first time, gazing in wonder at the tiny, bloody, screaming infant.

  There he was, chasing Sarah around the lawn, hearing her squeal. Daddy, Daddy!

  There he was, with Sarah, grabbing her shoulder, angry at being disobeyed.

  He rarely allowed the movie in his head to play any longer. He knew what happened next. He willed himself to hold his thoughts at the edge of the abyss, knowing that the following scenes of chaos and confusion would drag him down into a pit where he flailed in the darkness, out of control in grief and despair . . . If only he had forced her to stay home.

  Instead, he sat here every day, clinging on to self-control, barely noticing Tara taking away his coffee mug and replacing it with his glass and bottle of rye, sometimes eating the sandwich she left, sometimes not. Just waiting. Waiting for his last breath, hoping that as the alcohol numbed his thoughts, he would black out for the last time and his movie would finally have an ending.

  People didn’t visit anymore. He was OK with that, because he couldn’t raise the energy to speak. He couldn’t think of what to say. He didn’t care about their lives, didn’t care about the town gossip, didn’t care about anything, and had stopped listening even to Tara. In the early days, she had urged him to go back to work, to involve himself in the community. He didn’t refuse. He just got up every morning and sat here as the daylight hours ticked by, finally stumbling to bed, another day of existence under his belt.

  This morning, as Joe lit this third cigarette, he heard a truck groan and creak along his gravel drive, which was pockmarked with crevices and ditches filled with rivulets of muddy water from the continual rain.

  He waited without interest until the truck appeared in the driveway and came to a stop.

  * * *

  Harry noted the decay and disrepair the McIntosh home had fallen into since his last visit. Which, he realized, was over a year ago. In the early days after Sarah’s death, Harry brought his father, Ed, to sit with his grieving friend. But Ed had struggled to connect with Joe and asked Harry not to bring him anymore.

  “What should I say to him?” Ed asked. “What should I talk about? My son and daughter? Who are still alive while his kid is dead?” He shook his head. “I’m making it worse.”

  Harry had to agree. Ed might be a selfish sonofabitch, Harry thought, but he had a point.

  Gradually, everyone drifted away from Joe. The tragedy faded from the collective minds of the community, to be jolted back to the forefront only when Joe made a rare appearance in town or the Gazette ran an anniversary piece about Sarah, asking again for any new information that might solve her murder.

  Harry didn’t want to be here.

  He sat for a moment, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, figuring out what to say to Joe. He silently cursed Mason for coming back.

  Why was he back here? He had to be fucking with them.

  Harry remembered when Sarah went missing. He was out fishing when Ed had contacted him via the satellite phone. Harry didn’t hesitate. He pulled his net in and headed back to the dock. He was just married, at the time, and his wife was expecting their daughter. Harry was already experiencing the parental fear of the unknown, and one of his biggest what-ifs was playing out for Joe.

  Harry and most of the adult population of Coffin Cove had formed search parties. Even the protesters left their camps and helped. Police dogs on the ground and forestry helicopters in the air, but Sarah had vanished.

  Worry turned into fear and then suspicion. What had happened? Who had done this? Who had taken her?

  Everyone knew each other in Coffin Cove. It couldn’t be anyone local. Whispers about the protesters and Mason got louder. Someone told the police that Sarah had a crush on Pierre Mason, that he and she were seen together, maybe even kissing. Speculation turned to rumour and gathered momentum.

  Until that day on the beach, and Sarah wasn’t missing anymore.

  Harry got out of the truck, climbed the rotting wooden steps and stood over Joe.

  “How are you, Joe?” Harry asked. The words seeming ridiculous, as he could see
that Joe had shrunk into himself, his plaid shirt hanging over a skeletal frame. Joe’s shrivelled, nicotine-stained fingers jerked up, and Harry thought for a second that Joe was ordering him off the deck.

  Joe nodded in the same direction as his fingers and Harry realized that he was gesturing at a chair for Harry to sit in.

  The two men sat in silence, broken only by Joe’s wheezing breath.

  “Joe, I have something to tell you,” Harry began at last, and told him about Pierre Mason.

  Joe tried to speak. His voice, low and rusty after years of silence, came out as a whisper. Harry bent his head to hear the words.

  “I failed her,” Joe said.

  Harry touched Joe’s shoulder, and that simple gesture shattered Joe’s self-control. He bent his head to weep, and Harry backed away and left the broken man alone. Moments later, Harry was back in his truck, lurching back down the pitted driveway, cursing Pierre Mason.

  Chapter Seven

  “It’s in here somewhere, I’m positive.”

  Andi waited impatiently, curbing her urge to push past Jim and start dragging boxes off the shelves of the archive cupboard. Instead, she tried to ignore the stench of rodents, and hoped that the files were still readable.

  “Have you ever thought of creating digital records?” she asked, as Jim emerged, triumphantly carrying two heavy-looking boxes.

  “No, never,” he answered, setting down his load and disappearing back into the cupboard for a third.

  “These are all the files and transcripts from my original investigation. Er, this one, I think, is the first . . .” Jim opened the lid of one of the boxes. “Yes, all dated and in order. The articles are in fact saved on microfiche,” he said, ignoring Andi’s smirk. “If you’ve never used microfiche, I’ll be glad to help. I’m sure it’s no more complicated than Google,” he added.

  Andi laughed. She was getting used to Jim’s dry sense of humour.

  “Thank you, but I’m fully trained.”

  Andi peered into the boxes. Each one was full of neat manila files, marked with names and dates.

  “Lots of files,” Andi said. “Lots of work.”