COFFIN COVE a gripping murder mystery full of twists (Coffin Cove Mysteries Book 1) by JACKIE ELLIOTT (tharntype novel english .txt) 📗

He leaned back in his chair and looked with fresh eyes at the litter of paper on his desk, yellowed files and documents wedged down in places with chipped coffee cups. It had been twenty years or more since he’d moved into this cramped office. The mould stain in the corner of the ceiling from the leaking roof was still there, as was the wastepaper basket underneath that caught the drops of water during these wet winter days. The office was sparsely furnished. Jim didn’t need space or equipment these days — he had long since contracted out the actual printing of the Gazette to a modern facility on the mainland. All he needed was his laptop. He had reluctantly invested in a new sleek model a few months ago. It looked out of place on the heavy oak desk. Gleaming high-tech perched on a piece of history. The desk used to belong to his father, the only relic from the Gazette’s more prosperous days.

An observant reporter would look around this room and know, Jim thought, noting the worn path on the cheap carpet from door to desk, the dated faux wood panelling and the few framed newspaper cuttings arranged haphazardly on the wall. They would know that the Coffin Cove Gazette, the last independent new organization on the island, was in its death throes.

Without a miracle, some divine intervention, Jim could not fight off the corporate media organizations that regularly sent smiling, suited salesmen from the central island highway down the one, potholed access road to Coffin Cove, to promise that they were absolutely committed to providing a local news service to the population of Coffin Cove. Each time they came, the dollar offer got a little less, as if they sensed that Jim couldn’t hold on for much longer.

Hiring Andi was his Hail Mary. A last attempt to breathe some life back into the Gazette. Make Jim feel like it hadn’t all been a complete waste of his life.

He had invited Andi for an interview on impulse. And, he acknowledged to himself, because she had been the only applicant. A few phone calls — he still had connections — revealed her likely motivation.

Andi had changed a lot from the dispirited woman he’d first interviewed. He remembered how she’d blustered through the interview, saying all the things she thought he’d wanted to hear, but in all that bravado, she had no confidence in her work. She was a good writer, Jim thought. She had a good instinct for a story, and she knew how to listen to people, to coax out information. It was a talent. But somewhere along the way, she’d stopped paying attention to those instincts and started to behave like she thought she should. She’d stopped trusting herself.

Andi took the job because she had no other choice. Jim knew that. She’d assumed, like many outsiders, that Coffin Cove was a dying town. Her work would be limited to reporting on the mundanity of community life, happenings important to the inhabitants of the town, but lacking the — what was the word? Significance? Prestige? — of investigative journalism.

But Andi had impressed Jim. She was thoughtful, observant. If she had preconceived ideas about small-town life, her work didn’t show it. She listened to people, and they trusted her.

Jim wanted to ask Andi about her career-ending incident at the Vancouver Mail. What had really happened? He’d heard the rumours, knew that Andi was professionally toxic and had seen the full-page apology to the businessman that Andi’s unsubstantiated article had targeted. He’d wondered at the time why Andi had taken the full brunt of the fallout. Sure, she should be accountable for her work, but what about the editor’s responsibility?

And then he met Gavin.

Gavin. That’s what happened, Jim was sure. He’d been in the newspaper business long enough to meet people — mostly men, he had to admit — just like Gavin. Short on talent, long on bullshit, but smart enough to use other people to further their own career.

What was Gavin doing in Coffin Cove? Why did he bother to make the trip? Sure, it was a big story for this town — a murder. It doesn’t get much bigger than that. But the Vancouver Mail was a big-city paper. Gavin could have dispatched a junior reporter, so why hadn’t he?

Still pursuing Andi? Jim dismissed that thought. He’d watched Gavin sniffing round his young interns and strutting around like it was rutting season, and doubted that he gave Andi a passing thought.

So he either had a lead on a story they knew nothing about, or it was the same old thing — business.

Jim knew Andi had confronted Gavin. He hoped she had given that idiot his marching orders, once and for all. She deserved better. He was certain Andi would still make her mark as a journalist. But would it be with the Gazette?

Jim sat at his desk and turned on his laptop. He opened a spreadsheet and studied a cash flow statement intently, as if he could improve the numbers by sheer force of will.

Things had improved over the last weeks. That was the good news. The bad news? The Gazette was still far from turning a profit. Jim wondered for the umpteenth time how long he could continue to support the failing business from his savings — and for the first time, if it was worth the effort.

Maybe he should just sell out to the media corporation that had swallowed up all the independent publications all over the island. He noted again that the same corporation also owned the Vancouver Mail, so maybe Gavin’s presence wasn’t really a mystery at all.

Why was he doing this? Jim sighed and rubbed his eyes. He didn’t want the Gazette to be part of a big conglomerate, with only the odd short article