HELL'S HALF ACRE a gripping murder mystery full of twists (Coffin Cove Mysteries Book 2) by JACKIE ELLIOTT (classic literature books .txt) 📗

The first days after her son vanished, Sandra had been confident they’d find him. They were an influential couple. Dennis was mayor, he was a powerful businessman. They’d put out feelers, call in favours and find their precious boy. She made phone calls, drew up lists of places to search and cajoled members of the multiple committees she served on to spend hours putting up posters and knocking on doors.

It was her main — no, her only — topic of conversation. Where might her son have gone? Maybe he’d fallen, hit his head and lost his memory? Maybe he’d had a girlfriend who broke his heart, and he’d run away? Maybe he’d been abducted?

At first Dennis had indulged her. He’d even attempted to help her. But all along he’d fully expected Ricky to come back, his tail between his legs.

Dennis looked at the closed door and knew it was only a matter of time before she found out. Tomorrow, he’d have to answer Inspector Vega’s questions.

He went downstairs and sat in his study. He looked around. Everything in this room was carefully chosen to reflect his status. Each leather-bound volume in the bookcase, covering one whole wall, was a book he imagined a powerful man would read. He’d never even opened one. The chair he sat in had been ordered from Eastern Canada and upholstered in the softest blood-red leather. The desk was handmade from first-growth fir, with yew inlay and just enough gold leaf to exude class. Dennis loved this room.

He especially loved gazing out the picture window. He could see the entire town. His 180-degree view took in the pulp mill at one end of the bay and the craggy cliffs at the other. He could look down on the roofs of his constituents when he was mayor and imagine them to be his subjects. Sometimes, he stood smoking a cigar and counted each property and business he either owned or leased, calculating in his mind his net worth.

Now, he looked out at the ocean, still blue in the late afternoon sun, and wondered why he’d never gone fishing like other men in Coffin Cove. Daniel, his very best friend, had been a fisherman. He’d loved being on the water.

“There’s nothing like it, Den. Being out on deck as the sun comes up, that time in the morning when the sea is calm. It’s the most beautiful thing in the universe,” Daniel had told him, with wonder in his voice.

Daniel had been like that. Unworldly. He loved the ocean. And he loved Summer Thompson.

Oh, why was he thinking about Daniel now? He’d pushed that memory out of his mind. Yet when he saw Jade for the first time, smiling and handing out campaign leaflets, he could hardly breathe. It was as though Daniel had risen from his watery grave and come back to mock him. At that moment, Dennis lost the will to fight the election. Oh sure, he’d gone through the motions, but when the results were announced, he didn’t care. He was done with Coffin Cove. Or maybe it was the other way around.

Since Ricky had gone, his entire life had fallen apart.

He bent down and pulled out the bottom drawer. He found a bottle of bourbon, a cheap one. He kept it hidden, offering important visitors the limited edition single malt from the crystal decanter. Dennis looked at the bottle of Jack Daniel’s, unscrewed the lid and took a gulp, straight from the bottle. Why the fuck had he done that? Pretended he liked the expensive booze, when really, he preferred cold beer and cheap liquor?

Everything in his life was a pretence. Especially over the last months.

Dennis reached into his desk drawer again and pulled out a manila envelope. He opened it and pulled out the single sheet of paper. It was the results of a DNA test he’d had done a year or so back. It proved Ricky wasn’t his son. He’d always had an inkling. Ricky and Sandra were always close. Ricky irritated him. The boy was arrogant and self-centred. More than once, Dennis had to placate an angry father after Ricky had molested his teenage daughter.

“Just teenagers experimenting,” Dennis would say, as he pressed an envelope of hundred-dollar bills into the man’s hand, intimating his lawyer would drag the poor girl’s name through the mud if the matter was taken any further. It usually did the trick.

Doris, Dennis’s mother — a vinegary, mean woman, who’d always hated Sandra — first told Dennis she was convinced Ricky wasn’t his biological son. The information gnawed away at him until he confirmed it once and for all.

He wasn’t prepared for the rage he felt when he saw the results. The fury and humiliation were all-consuming. How dare Sandra deceive him? How dare she spend his money and spoil that lazy piece of shit who never worked a day in his life?

So Dennis laid his plans.

He set Ricky up with a business he knew the pothead would jump at. His very own weed store? It was like all Ricky’s dreams come true at once. For all of Ricky’s adult life, he’d only showed interest in two things: screwing and weed. And Dennis figured he would kill two birds with one stone. He wanted to buy the trailer park behind the strip mall, but the price was too high. A few months of the Smoke Room and Ricky’s pothead friends partying day and night, and most of the decent tenants would leave. With substantially decreased revenue coming into the park, Dennis was sure he’d get a great deal. And Ricky? Dennis was certain of one thing: Ricky was stupid enough to think he could make some cash on the side with illegal drugs, probably hooking up with that scumbag Kevin.

Dennis was right. He had ears everywhere and knew