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

this,” he added, noticing Andi’s blank expression. “The town is over that mountain to the right. Over the left-hand mountain is the main island highway. And this here—” he braked and slowed the truck so Andi could look around — “is what’s left of the valley community.”

At first Andi didn’t see anything. Just spindly trees and mounds of bushes covered with swamp grass. But as she looked closely, she saw rusty contortions of metal, almost devoured by Mother Nature. Piles of rotting wood, some with the faded outlines of painted words, threw eerie jagged shadows as weak sunlight filtered through the grey clouds. On the banks of the river she could see the crumbling remains of concrete structures and what looked like large plastic tanks and abandoned huts behind a chain-link fence.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“The old hatchery,” Jim replied. “I’ll show you.”

He parked the truck and they both got out. Andi shivered. It was raining heavily, and she could hear the river gushing behind the buildings.

Jim pushed open a rusty gate and kicked aside a rotting sign.

“The Valley Hatchery,” Andi read out loud, and looked at Jim questioningly, not knowing why they had stopped.

“They built the hatchery to help conserve the wild salmon stocks,” Jim explained. “Salmon return to the rivers to spawn. But their eggs and juvenile salmon are vulnerable to all kinds of predators. So the idea of the hatchery is to have a safe place for the eggs to hatch and the salmon to grow before they swim out to the ocean. These over here—” he pointed at the crumbling plastic tanks — “are the holding tanks for the eggs to incubate. They’re transferred into spawning channels — offshoots from the river — before they’re released.” He smiled. “It’s a bit more complicated than that, but the basic idea is to give Mother Nature a helping hand.”

“And does it work?” Andi asked.

“More or less,” Jim said. “It’s not perfect, but stocks, at least, weren’t dropping while the hatchery was open.”

“Why did it close?”

“The flooding,” Jim said. “Every year in spring, the river floods. The clear-cutting meant that soil and gravel washed into the river and blocked up the spawning channels. The hatchery ran mainly on the efforts of volunteers and they just didn’t have the budget to keep it open — another reason the fishermen are pissed off. The government pours thousands of taxpayers’ dollars into enforcing the rules but gives no investment to enhance the fisheries. It’s wrong.”

“I see. But maybe the environmentalists have a point?” Andi still wasn’t sure why they had toured the hatchery.

Jim ignored her. “Sarah spent a lot of time here. She volunteered. See that hut over there?” He pointed to a large battered Portakabin. “She helped organize fundraisers and open days for the public. She even had her own desk.”

“It must have upset her when the hatchery closed.”

“Devastated, according to Sue. Sarah blamed Joe for the clear-cutting. They argued about it a lot.”

“It’s a plausible explanation for her getting involved with Mason, then?”

Jim nodded. “Joe said that Sarah was punishing him. The thing is, Joe and Tara encouraged Sarah to go to college and study marine biology or something in that line. She had the grades. But she was adamant that she wouldn’t take their money because it came from logging.”

“What a mess,” Andi said.

“Yes. And I’m sure that Sue and Fred made it harder. They hated the forestry industry too. So they would have pulled Sarah in two directions.”

“But they wouldn’t have approved of Mason, surely?” Andi asked.

“Absolutely not. Sue, I’m sure, isn’t convinced that Mason wasn’t involved.”

“Did they do any kind of investigating themselves? Or offer a reward?” Andi had previously worked on stories where parents had offered large sums of money for information.

“They did, briefly. But the police advised against it after a while. Said they didn’t have the resources to chase after every lead that the crazies phoned in.”

Andi nodded.

They both got back into Jim’s truck. His face was set into a grim expression, preoccupied with the past, Andi thought, so she asked no more questions. They travelled in silence until Jim pointed ahead at a collection of dilapidated buildings. At first Andi thought they were more crumbled remains, but as they got nearer, she could see a thin wisp of smoke coming from a tin chimney on one of the structures.

Jim brought the truck to a stop in front of three buildings. An old rusty truck was parked out front. The first building was larger and in better shape than the other two. A porch wrapped around three sides, but Andi couldn’t see windows or any other sign of human occupants. Andi wasn’t sure if it was a house or a barn. Steps at the side led up to the only entrance that Andi could see.

She got out of the truck and walked towards the building. When she got nearer, she saw a crude metal sign hanging above the wooden door.

“This is the church?” she asked Jim.

“Yes. And the old schoolhouse. Fred’s house is out back.”

It reminded Andi of post-apocalyptic movies, where people abandoned their homes in the nick of time to escape disaster. Rusting tools were strewn over the yard, as if the person using them had been called away in a hurry and had just dropped them where they stood.

Between the church and the house someone had planted tulips and daffodils in cracked flowerpots and arranged them under an old tyre that was suspended by rope from the branches of a moss-covered maple tree — a child’s swing. It was the first sign of human life she’d seen.

The tyre moved slightly in a gust of wind and Andi shivered. Above the gush of the river, Andi could hear intermittent thuds, like someone chopping wood, and a low-level rumble coming from the same