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

by JACKIE ELLIOTT

  “All fine. Hilstead’s got the gun, though.”

  “Ah. It’s out of our hands now,” Terry said as the sound of sirens got nearer, and they could see blue and red lights flashing in the distance. “Did someone mention tea?”

  Chapter Forty

  “Not too early?” Jim asked.

  “No,” Andi said, “come in,” and she stood back to let Jim into her apartment, glad to see he was balancing two coffees on top of a box.

  “Where are the muffins?” she asked.

  “We’re economizing,” Jim said, placing the box down. He looked at Andi. “You look tired.”

  “I was up late writing my article. Terry turned over all the audio he got yesterday to Vega’s team, and they have enough to charge Hilstead. He didn’t actually admit to attempting to kill Brenda, but he threatened to kill Nikos and Adrian, and that’s plenty. Terry sent me a copy. Plus, I got the files from Carol Morin. I wanted to make a start.”

  “You ready to publish?” Jim asked.

  Andi shook her head, feeling sheepish. “No, I, er . . . promised Vega I’d hold off until he gives me the go-ahead.”

  “Really?” Jim raised his eyebrows and said with mock seriousness, “How very responsible of you.”

  “Actually, he promised me an exclusive, if I waited.” Andi couldn’t help smiling smugly. “Lucky, really, because he was pretty mad about the surveillance.”

  “It could have gone very wrong,” Jim said. “Lucky that Hilstead escaped without anyone getting really hurt. Can I read your draft?”

  Andi handed Jim a copy of her article.

  Jim sat down, and they both drank coffee in silence while Jim read through Andi’s work.

  “This is good,” he said finally, looking up.

  “It’s just the start,” Andi said. “Nguyen’s tentacles stretch further than just the fishing industry. He’s the real story. Mason knew it too — Hilstead’s just a thug. Unfortunately for Mason, he didn’t know how far Hilstead would go. My guess is that he confronted Hilstead and threatened to expose him, and, well . . . we know the rest.”

  “Any word on Hilstead now?”

  “Not yet. Vega has a full-on manhunt underway. If they get Hilstead, they’ll get Nguyen.”

  Jim put his coffee down and walked over to Andi’s story wall. Andi watched him. She sensed he had something to say.

  Finally, with his back to Andi, he said, “So you were wrong about the connection between the two murders.”

  Andi sighed. “OK, I made assumptions. It just seemed too much of a coincidence. But I was wrong. Mason’s murder had nothing to do with Sarah McIntosh.”

  Jim turned round to face Andi. “Come here, I want to show you something.”

  Andi stood beside Jim as he unpinned and rearranged the documents on the wall.

  “See?” he said when he was finished. “There is a connection. But not the one you thought.”

  Andi looked at Jim in amazement. “Are you sure? I mean, is this just a theory or . . . ?”

  “It’s not just a theory,” Jim said. And he explained to Andi what he had discovered.

  “Why didn’t anyone figure this out back then?” Andi asked.

  “Mason’s wife was right,” Jim said sadly. “It was easier to think an outsider would do this terrible thing. Even me. I thought I was being objective. I thought I was following the facts, but I was told a story I wanted to believe. And I destroyed a man’s reputation.”

  Andi was quiet. She carried that burden herself.

  Jim carried on. “You see, everyone knows everyone else’s business in Coffin Cove. I was just choosing to ignore it.”

  * * *

  “Do you think they’ll get him?”

  Harry patted Brenda on the shoulder.

  “Don’t worry. He can’t get far. The police are looking everywhere for him.

  Brenda nodded. “I know. I just want this over with.”

  She wasn’t worried. A police cruiser was stationed outside her apartment block and Adrian had offered to pay for her to go to a hotel. But all she wanted was some peace.

  “What will you do now? Will you go back to work for Hades?”

  Brenda looked up at Harry. She let her eyes rest for a moment on his familiar weather-beaten face.

  “No. It’s not the same. I’m too set in my ways for Adrian. He needs some young blood. I think I’ll go out east and stay with my sister. Take some time out. I’ll rent out my apartment, and who knows? Maybe I’ll start a new life in Ontario.”

  “That’s good,” Harry answered. “We all need a fresh start now and again, right?”

  Brenda pressed her lips together and willed back tears. What had she expected? For Harry to beg her to stay?

  She managed a smile. “That sounds like your plane.” She reached out and rubbed his arm. “Thank you for everything, Harry. You take care of yourself, OK?”

  Harry gave Brenda a hug, and she pushed him away quickly, not wanting to cry.

  The floatplane chugged to the dock, and Harry picked up his bag.

  “Keep in touch, Bren,” he said over his shoulder as he walked away.

  Brenda nodded and held her hand up to wave. “Sure, I will.”

  But as she watched Harry climb into the aircraft, smiling and laughing with the pilot, she knew it was time to let the past go forever.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Harry drove. Jim sat beside him in the passenger seat. Neither of them said much, and Andi let her mind drift a little as the truck left the tarmac road and turned onto the gravel track that led up to the McIntosh house. As they climbed higher, the trees thinned out and Andi saw the view of the town and the ocean that had drawn Joe to build his house far up here on a rocky outcrop.

  In the soft light that transitions day to night, Andi looked down on the lights of Coffin Cove. It looked so peaceful, she thought. Idyllic, almost. It was calm in the cove. The ocean stretched out like dark velvet, with just the occasional flash of light from a can buoy, warning vessels to keep clear of shallow waters.

  Andi had submitted her first article to print. Terry sent pictures, including one of the startled, half-blinded Hilstead. Andi checked with Inspector Vega before publishing. She didn’t want to compromise the police investigation, which was now officially a manhunt.

  Vega thanked her for her cooperation and promised an exclusive when the time came.

  Andi wondered if she should have given Vega a heads-up about their new suspicions about Brian McIntosh. But right now, she reasoned, they knew nothing. They just had a tiny silver necklace and Sue’s grief-stricken theories. It wasn’t even a story yet.

  She gazed down at Coffin Cove. At night-time the shadows hid the dilapidated buildings and potholed streets. For a town where everyone knew everyone else’s business, Andi thought, it kept its darkest secrets well.

  Would she stay? She didn’t know. Jim had been skirting around this question, probably wanting to ask, but not sure how. The Gazette had increased circulation a little, and was attracting new advertising — even businesses from Nanaimo were buying space — but the newspaper was far from being a viable business. Jim was paying Andi out of his own pocket, Andi suspected. She could probably get hired by one of the big media companies now, maybe on the East Coast.

  She sighed. Focus on one story at a time, she thought. Worry about the future later.

  “What’s up?” Jim asked from the front seat.

  “Just thinking about when I first got here,” Andi said truthfully. “I thought I’d be spending the rest of my career reporting on community bake sales.”

  Jim said nothing, but Andi imagined his smile.

  “OK, we’re here,” Harry said gruffly. He parked the truck in the driveway, and a motion light illuminated the yard. Andi could see a hunched figure sitting on the deck, a thin plume of smoke rising from a cigarette.

  Harry twisted round in his seat to face Andi.

  “He’s in bad shape, Andi. I don’t know if he’ll be sober. If he gets really agit
ated, we might have to leave it, OK?”

  Andi nodded.

  The three of them got out of the truck, and Harry led them up the steps to the deck.

  “Harry? Is that you?” Andi heard a woman’s voice coming from inside the house. Tara, she presumed.

  “Yes, it’s Harry.”

  A woman with short grey hair and large glasses that framed kind blue eyes came out to the deck. “You’ve brought visitors,” she said, sounding confused. “Here, wait a minute.”

  She stepped back into the house, and in a moment, the deck was flooded with light.

  Andi blinked and refocused her eyes. Joe McIntosh was a shrunken, withered figure. He reminded Andi for a fleeting moment of Fred Harding, his father-in-law. But Fred had a life force, Andi decided, even if it was rage that still burned within him. This man was almost lifeless. The smell of alcohol was strong, and Andi realized that Joe was dousing the last embers of his humanity with booze. His life was over. He was just waiting for physical death to catch up with reality.

  “What do you want, Harry?” Tara’s voice was anxious. “Why is Jim with you? Who is this?”

  Harry introduced Andi.

  “Sorry to come unannounced, Tara. But we — well Sue, actually, she found something and it might mean something . . .” Harry’s voice faltered a little, Andi noticed with surprise — she had never encountered gentleness from this man before.

  “Mean something? I don’t understand. What did Sue find?” Tara demanded. “That woman’s not right in the head, Harry. You know that. I feel sorry for her, but we have enough on our plate.” She gestured to Joe. “I don’t think we can take much more, not after all this business with Mason.”

  At the mention of Mason, Joe reacted for the first time. He lifted his head and stared at Harry with watery eyes.

  “What did Sue find, Harry?” His voice was strong, but he sounded disinterested, almost, Andi thought, resigned to whatever news might be coming.

  “This.” Jim stepped forward, opened his hand, and let the tiny silver necklace and cross spill onto the metal table next to Joe.

  Joe stared at it for a moment and then turned his eyes away.

  “What is it?” Tara pushed forward. “A necklace?” She picked it up and held it up to the light. “You think this is Sarah’s?” she asked incredulously, understanding now what Harry meant. “That’s crazy, Harry. There must be a thousand silver crosses out there. Sue told you she found it? Where?” she demanded. “You know that Sue thought she saw Sarah in town months after she died? She needs help, Harry, not encouragement!” Tara dropped the necklace. “Enough of this nonsense!” she almost shouted.

  “Wait!” Joe said and turned in his seat to face Jim. “Where did Sue find it? What did she say?”

  “Joe—” Tara stood between Joe and Jim.

  “Out of the way, woman!” Joe’s bellow made Andi jump and Tara turn round in shock. Wordlessly, she stepped out of the way.

  “Can I have a seat, Tara?” Jim asked calmly, and the tension eased slightly. Tara dragged over a chair, and Jim sat down, facing Joe directly.

  “Sue found the necklace in one of the old buildings at the hatchery,” he started. “She found it in a bundle of old belongings that she described to me. She hunts out there most days, and she said that lately, she felt that someone was watching her. We — Sue and I — went out to check, but the hut was empty. However, Andi saw Brian just before he disappeared, and from Sue’s description, it sounded a lot like the bundle of belongings he was carrying.” Jim hesitated. “Sue is sure that this necklace is Sarah’s. It wasn’t on her body when she was found, and Sue said that she wore it all the time. She never took it off. You gave it to her, didn’t you, Joe?”

  Joe nodded. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Jim.

  “Sue thought the necklace must have been lost in the water. She said it fell out of an old tin box of trinkets.” Jim reached out and took Joe’s wrist.

  “Harry and I and lots of other people in town have seen Brian with a tin box just like the one Sue found. So the thing is, Joe,” Jim moved in a little closer, “how did Brian get Sarah’s necklace? And what does he know about her death?”

  “That doesn’t mean—” Tara interrupted, but Jim held up his hand to silence her.

  “Brian was the witness who put Sarah with Mason just before her death. He was the one who intimated that Sarah and Mason were . . . close.” Jim chose his words carefully. “He knew that rumours are like a virus in this town, and the gossips would do a great job of turning a hint of a salacious story into fact. And the sad thing is, Joe, we all bit. Even after the police cleared Mason, we all still believed that it must have been an outsider who took Sarah from us.”

  Andi could see that Harry and Tara were riveted. She felt in her jacket for her phone. She stepped back into the shadows, opened the voice record app, and replaced her phone carefully back in her pocket.

  “Sue never believed that Sarah had any kind of relationship with Mason. Neither did Hephzibah. But the rest of us . . . well, it seemed to make sense. A girl with a strict religious upbringing, a broken home — we all figured that she must have fallen for Mason and the excitement of the protests. After all, how many parents really know what their kids are doing? Especially when they’re teenagers.”

  Joe was still.

  “Mason wasn’t interested in Sarah. We know that because Andi met his wife recently.”

  That made Joe flinch for the first time. Jim carried on.

  “In fact, he didn’t really know who Sarah was. His real interest was stopping the clear-cutting. And someone was helping him, by feeding him information about your talks with the First Nation and your lawyers. But he wasn’t getting the real story, was he, Joe? Somebody was feeding him bullshit, wasn’t that right?”

  Joe bent his head, and for a moment, Andi thought he was wheezing, not able to catch his breath. Tara must have thought so too, because she knelt by Joe and held his hand.

  “Joe, calm down,” she implored him.

  Andi realized that Joe was sobbing. He was bent forward, his shoulders shuddering.

  “That’s enough, Jim!” Tara shouted. “Leave it be!” She wrapped her arms around Joe, shushing him.

  “No, Joe. For years a man had his reputation smeared. I helped do that because I didn’t do my job properly. Your daughter’s name was dragged through the mud too. Her mother deserves the truth. Sue deserves to know how her daughter died, and she needs to restore Sarah’s memory.” Jim spoke forcefully, and Andi saw his cheek glisten.

  “C’mon man,” Harry said. “Tell us the truth!”

  They waited until Joe’s sobs subsided. Then he began to speak.

  “I wanted to sell. It was getting harder to make a profit. The environmental regulations, the First Nation claims, everything was working against me. I was paying more than any other outfit, and everybody expected me to take them on. Good old Joe, he’ll give you a job, even Ed,” he said bitterly, looking up at Harry. “Every fucking drunk and layabout in Coffin Cove thought I should give them a job, even if they couldn’t swing a fucking axe. It was killing my business.”

  Harry said nothing, his expression blank.

  “The Americans made me an offer. And then the protesters showed up. At first, I thought it would kill the offer, and I was running around trying to figure it out, having meetings, making promises, anything to get rid of Mason and his fucking hippies.” Joe paused and seemed to lapse into his memories for a moment.

  “Then, I figured this could work for me. The Americans were already complaining about my payroll costs — they said the workforce was bloated and overpaid. I knew if I laid off workers, or cut wages, then my name would be mud around here. Most people were already jealous.” He looked at Jim. “You have no idea how many people knocked on my door wanting money. ‘You’re so lucky,’ they said. ‘You should remember where you came from,’ they said.” He pulled his hand back from Jim, who had been holding his wrist.

  “Everyone forgot all
about those long hours I worked. They just knew I had money and thought I should give it out.”

  “Tell us what happened, Joe,” Harry said quietly. Andi knew him well enough to know that he was getting angry.

  “During the protests, nobody was getting paid. I had some logs stockpiled, so I kept selling. I thought if I could keep the protests going long enough, either people would find other jobs, or I could claim bankruptcy or something. The Americans offered me a bonus if I could get rid of two-thirds of the payroll. So I started feeding Mason information. I would have him believe that I was going to log in different areas and give him time to get his barricades in place. It was working too.”

  “How did you get the information to him?” Jim asked.

  Joe dropped his head. “I paid someone.”

  “Brian?” Jim asked, although Andi knew that Jim was leading Joe through a story he had already figured out.

  “Yes.”

  “Joe!” Tara let go of the arm she’d been rubbing and stood up. “Why does this matter now? Stop, Joe,” she said urgently.

  He waved his hand. “It doesn’t matter now, Tara. Can’t you see that? I have no life. You have no life, just watching me piss the rest of mine away. I’m tired. I want this to be over. I want to see my Sarah again.” He started to weep.

  “Joe,” Jim said impatiently. “What happened? What happened to Sarah?”

  Joe wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

  “She was so mad with me about the hatchery. I was doing it for her, I was selling because of her! I thought she would take my money if I was out of the logging business and go to university! Get out of Coffin Cove and make something of her life. I didn’t even care when she joined the protest. But one evening she overheard me talking to Brian. She heard everything.” Joe buried his head in his hands.

  “She said I was destroying the town. She said . . . she said . . .” he faltered. “She said many terrible things to me. Brian was mocking her. He always hated Sarah, he was jealous. I was furious, and I’d been drinking . . .” He stopped and his breathing quickened.

  “Go on, Joe.” Jim’s voice was soft. “Get it out, man, you’ve been carrying this too long.”