COFFIN COVE a gripping murder mystery full of twists (Coffin Cove Mysteries Book 1), JACKIE ELLIOTT [most recommended books txt] 📗

Jim sighed. “She basically believes that Tara is the devil.”

“Seriously?” Andi was incredulous. “No wonder Sarah was confused.”

“After the divorce, Sue would not take any financial settlement. She just moved back in with her parents. She was always a regular churchgoer, but she got . . . I suppose you would describe it as more fanatical. Sue’s father was a ‘hellfire and brimstone’ kind of religious zealot, and eventually none of the local churches were enough for him. And so . . . well, you’ll see when we get there.”

“When did Joe and Sue divorce?” Andi asked. “A long time before Sarah’s death?

“Oh yes. Years. Sarah was about eight or nine, I think. Until then, Joe hadn’t really paid a lot of attention to Sarah. Or to Sue, really. He was focused 100 per cent on his business.”

“So what changed?” Andi pressed him to continue.

“Well, Sue had put Sarah in her father’s church school.”

“Wait,” Andi interrupted, “her father’s a teacher?”

“Not really,” Jim answered. “He’s more of a pastor who also runs a school.”

“So is it an official school or what?” Andi was having a hard time getting her head around the concept. “Is it part of the school district? Don’t they have rules about that?”

“They do now,” Jim answered. “But back then, Fred, Sue’s father, ran an offshoot of the Pentecostal Church, and he had a private school. It was thriving for a while. So that’s where Sarah went, for a couple of years, anyway. It was more a gesture from Sue — an attempt to reconcile, I think. They hated Joe, they thought he was godless. I’m not certain, but I think Sue got pregnant on purpose to get away from her father. Joe and Sue weren’t even dating, really, and suddenly they got married. Probably doomed from the start.”

“And then they split up because . . . ?”

“Oh, Joe found out that Sarah couldn’t read. She could recite Bible passages, but apart from that, she was eight years old and couldn’t read or even write her own name. Joe pulled her out of the church school and put her in the Coffin Cove elementary with all the other kids. Fred was furious, and Sue left Joe in protest. Although Joe having an affair with Tara probably had more to do with it. They divorced, and Sue fought for sole custody of Sarah. Joe fought back, and for several years it was nasty.”

“You don’t think the whole situation had anything to do with Sarah’s death?”

“Oh no. Sarah was fifteen, going on sixteen, and she had been making her own choices about seeing her father for a while. She even got on quite well with Tara.” Jim hesitated for a moment. “Fred is an odd duck. There were rumours that he beat up his wife. Ruth — that’s Sue’s mother — often had a black eye, and no believable reasons for them. But I don’t think he ever laid a hand on Sue, and he was pretty broken up after Sarah’s death.”

“How do you even start a church?” Andi mused. “Aren’t there rules about that either?”

Jim laughed. “It’s like the Wild Wild West to you, isn’t it?”

“Yes!”

“It was a bit wild out here,” Jim conceded. “It wasn’t that many years ago Coffin Cove was just a logging camp and fishing dock. The town grew around that, and people made their own rules.”

“And their own churches and schools?”

“Yes. But thirty years ago, there were eleven pubs in Coffin Cove. So it didn’t hurt to have a few God-fearing men,” said Jim, a bit defensively. “Anyway, when Joe pulled Sarah out of the church school, Fred never forgave him. Because after that, other parents started questioning his teachings and taking their kids out, and finally the school folded.”

As they chatted back and forth, Jim had driven out of Coffin Cove on the single winding, narrow road that climbed up away from the ocean and eventually joined the island highway. They passed over a narrow bridge that crossed a fast-flowing river, and before they reached the intersection with the main highway, Jim took a sharp right turn onto a gravel road. Trees obscured the entrance and Andi couldn’t see any signs. They seemed to immediately reverse their direction and head back towards Coffin Cove. The track descended at a steep angle and Andi was relieved they were in a truck, because the vehicle bounced through potholes and lost traction occasionally. Jim’s expert steering kept the truck on the road, although it seemed to Andi, as she braced her arm against the dashboard, they were only narrowly avoiding crashing into the undergrowth. Finally, the track flattened out, and they were driving parallel to the same swift-moving river they crossed earlier. Andi understood now why Jim didn’t want her to get coffee for the journey.

“A few more weeks of rain, and this road will be impassable,” Jim said.

“Is this the only way to Sue’s house?” Andi asked.

Jim nodded. “Yes. We call this area the Valley. Quite a few people used to live out here, but after all the clear-cutting, the valley flooded every spring. Most people left. They’re cut off for weeks at a time,” he said. “But nobody could persuade the old man to leave, not even when their house was four feet underwater. He said it was God’s will if he lived or drowned, and he was staying exactly where he was. Now, it’s just Sue and Fred. Sue tried to get him to move into town when Ruth died, but he wasn’t having it.”

Andi sat silently, processing this information and watching the scenery. The trees had thinned out and she could see now that they were surrounded by mountains. Andi tried to get her bearings and figure out where Coffin Cove was, but they had made so many turns that she was lost.

“We’re going north,” Jim said. “OK, try