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

other teenage girls on the boardwalk, giggling and eyeing up the gaggle of scrawny boys who preened and paraded in front of them. Sue had never brought Sarah to the Salmon Festival or the Fall Fair. Sarah dressed differently, talked differently and kept herself to herself. Even the volunteers at the hatchery thought she was odd. After the initial outpouring of grief, the less charitable rumours started.

She was rebelling, they said. You keep too tight a rein, and they are bound to fight against it. It was Sue’s fault. She should have let Sarah live a little. No wonder she got starry-eyed about that man.

Eventually Coffin Cove moved on. The mysterious death of Sarah McIntosh became a story that was told over a beer at the Fat Chicken on a rainy evening. People nudged each other if they saw Sue in town, and they speculated about Joe’s drinking, but the tragedy, for most people, wasn’t real anymore. It was Coffin Cove folklore.

Andi changed all that. And although Jim outwardly objected, he knew this story needed an ending. The truth needed to be told. Maybe Andi would yet make her mark.

Jim promised Sue that he’d meet her at the hatchery the next day. There was something else he needed to check too. He reached for his phone when he was alone in his office, intending to call Andi, but he heard the office door open, and the sound of Andi’s voice. She was talking on her cell phone.

“Right. I understand. Nothing on the record. I’ll meet her at the coffee shop by the Fishermen’s Wharf, 10 a.m. tomorrow. Yes, I understand. Tell her I promise it will be confidential.”

Jim looked at Andi expectantly as she finished her call. She was damp, steam rising slightly from her hair and jacket. A plaid jacket, Jim noted with amusement.

“So?” he asked.

“So this is getting weirder by the minute,” Andi said, “and scary. This morning, Gerry Roberts’s body was discovered on the beach below the DFO office. The police aren’t saying much at the moment, and they haven’t officially identified him, but Christina, his secretary, called me.” She held up her phone. “She says that Roberts was shot.”

“Holy shit! Could it be suicide?”

Explains why Gavin and his crew left in such a hurry, he thought, and wished, not for the first time, that the Gazette could afford more than one reporter.

Andi sat down.

“It could be,” she said sadly. “Oh God, I hope my visit didn’t cause that. Christina said he was acting strange, stranger than usual after that. But she didn’t think he was depressed. He seemed jumpy.”

“The police will want to talk to you again,” Jim said. “You have the knack of popping up near dead bodies.”

“Goes with the job,” Andi said, not breaking a smile. “Anyway, I gave that Inspector Vega everything I had: the phone, the picture Mason sent. Not my fault if he’s not making the connections.”

“There might not be any connections,” Jim pointed out. “You’re joining up a lot of dots here, without evidence.”

“What are you talking about?” Andi said, clearly taken aback. “The day before Mason gets killed he sends me a picture and tells me it’s the story I should be investigating, then the other guy connected to the same picture freaks out when I interview him and then ends up dead on the beach. Of course I’m joining up dots! Can’t possibly be a coincidence, right?”

“Who are you meeting tomorrow?” Jim changed the subject.

“That’s the other weird thing,” Andi said. “That was Christina’s friend on the phone, the one who was a protester. Christina gave her my number, and she called to say that Mason’s wife, or partner, or whatever she is, wants to talk to me. But it has to be off the record.”

Jim nodded. “Good work. You’re right. Can’t be coincidence.” He got up and reached for his jacket. “Come on.”

“Where’re we going?” Andi asked, as Jim turned off the office light.

“There’s one more dot to connect,” he said. “Harry. He was in that picture too.”

“Jim?” Something in Andi’s voice made him stop and turn around.

“What?” he asked.

Andi looked serious. “Vega’s team picked up Harry for questioning earlier. The gun the diver found? They think it belongs to Harry.”

Chapter Thirty-One

Brian had suffered a coughing fit that had left him convulsing in pain. When he’d managed to stifle the wheezing, he stared down at the flecks of blood and phlegm on his sleeve then wiped them on his pants.

He was hungry but too weak to move far. Yet he had to do something.

The hatchery wasn’t safe anymore.

A day ago — maybe two days, he wasn’t sure — he’d watched Sue enter the hut from the undergrowth. He’d left his stuff and was foraging around for something he could eat, anything to dull the hunger pains gnawing at his stomach. Otherwise Sue would have found him. Sue would turn him in for sure, Brian knew. That bitch was as bad as Tara. But maybe if she’d found him, he could have persuaded her to feed him. She was religious. She was supposed to look after the poor and needy.

He imagined Sue offering him warm soup and bread. Then, when her back was turned, he’d grab that gun and shoot the bitch in the head. Sue was how all his fucking problems started. If Joe had never seen her, never got it into his head to marry her, he wouldn’t be here now. Tears welled in his eyes. It was all Joe’s fault. Why did he want to get married, anyway? Why not just fuck her?

He started coughing again.

Sue had stayed in the hut for a while. He’d stayed out of sight for hours, it felt like, even after he saw Sue leave.

She was a good hunter, Brian knew. She might have walked away from the