He took a brisk walk from the detachment to Hephzibah’s café, intending to grab a coffee and head back to his motel room. It was mid-morning, and a steady drizzle of rain soaked his jacket. He didn’t mind the dampness against his face. The cool air eased the headache that had started to form, and he looked forward to a decent cup of coffee to sharpen his mind.
He’d expected the café to be empty at this hour, but the condensation on the windows and hum of chatter told him otherwise. Every available seat was taken, mostly by fishermen, the steam rising from damp rain gear strewn across the backs of chairs. The noise level abated a little when Vega entered the café. Everyone knew who he was and why he was here, Vega supposed.
He nodded to a couple of familiar faces. He’d sat in on some of the preliminary interviews with fishermen who had been in the vicinity when Mason’s body was discovered.
Vega ordered coffee from the tall woman behind the counter, who greeted him with a smile.
“Morning, Inspector! Any news yet?”
He smiled back at her directness.
“No, not yet. But we are working hard. Could I get a large black coffee, please?”
Hephzibah Brown. Who could forget a name like that? He had also interviewed Hephzibah to corroborate the reporter’s story about Brian McIntosh and the phone she handed in. Hephzibah had confirmed Andi Silvers’ statement and was also able to give more details about McIntosh’s background. Seemed he had a reputation for petty theft.
Vega wasn’t sure why, but Hephzibah Brown was ringing a bell far in the recesses of his mind. He filed the partial memory away for later.
Hephzibah handed him the coffee and a small paper bag.
“It’s a muffin,” she explained. “Morning Glory. I make them myself. On the house.”
“Oh, I . . . er . . .” Vega was caught off guard for a second.
“Oh God, are you not allowed?” Hephzibah clapped her hand across her mouth in horror. “It’s not a bribe or anything! You just looked hungry!”
Vega laughed out loud. “No, it’s fine. Thank you very much.”
Back at the motel room, he munched on the muffin and sipped coffee as he read through the files. Occasionally, he scribbled notes about lines of enquiry that his team could explore. He was looking for patterns. Small pieces of detail that would thread the investigation together, names that stood out.
The McIntosh family featured in both case files. Vega and one of his female officers, Sergeant Fowler, had visited Joe McIntosh and his ex-wife, Sue. He hated interviews with cold-case victims. He felt he’d personally let them down. This was the part the media and public didn’t see. Murder is like dropping a stone into a perfectly still pond. The moment the stone breaks the surface, ripples fan out, disrupting the calm waters again and again. The pain never stops.
He saw in a moment that Joe McIntosh was a broken man. The loss of his daughter had consumed him. Alcohol had done little to deaden the pain but was certainly hastening his death. The man didn’t react at all when Vega asked about his whereabouts at the time of Mason’s murder.
“Here,” he said. “I’m always here.”
Tara, Joe’s second wife, confirmed this. “He rarely leaves the house,” she explained. “Neither do I. I make sure he eats something and he gets to bed. Otherwise he would just sit out here on the deck all night long, drinking whiskey.”
“Have you tried grief counselling, ma’am?” Vega asked. Tara had shown him into the house and made him some tea, while Sergeant Fowler had a surreptitious walk around the property to see if there was any sign of Brian McIntosh.
Tara sighed. “No, Inspector. Joe wouldn’t go to counselling. You see, he thinks he deserves this. He blames himself for Sarah’s death.” She continued, “Sarah and Joe argued a lot before she was killed. She was angry about Joe’s forestry operations. They blamed the clear-cutting for the flooding in the valley. Joe wouldn’t hear it. He just thought Sarah’s mother and grandfather were poisoning her mind against him.” She paused. “And I have to say, Inspector, he was probably right about that. Sue never forgave Joe for their divorce — in fact, she still doesn’t accept that Joe and I are married.” She smiled slightly. “Sue still refers to me as a ‘Jezebel’.”
Vega thought nobody looked less like a “Jezebel” than this tired-looking sixty-something woman, with her sensible haircut and large framed glasses.
“It’s been hard, Inspector,” Tara McIntosh said suddenly, her eyes full of tears. Vega wondered if this lady ever got to talk to anyone about her feelings.
“When we lost Sarah, I lost a stepdaughter who I loved very much, and I also lost my husband and my marriage.”
Vega nodded in sympathy. The ripples, he thought. Destroying more lives than just the murder victim’s.
“What did you and Joe think about Mason returning to Coffin Cove?”
Tara shrugged. “We wouldn’t have known about it, except that Harry came to tell Joe.”
“Harry?”
“Harry Brown. His father, Ed, was a friend of Joe’s once upon a time, and Hephzibah, his sister, was Sarah’s friend. Sarah’s only friend,” she added. “Harry went out on all the searches when Sarah disappeared, and he was the one to break the news when they found her body. I guess he feels an obligation to let Joe know if there are any developments. Not that there have been many over the years.” She said it in a non-accusing way, but Vega acknowledged her point anyway. Again, he felt a flash of recognition at the name.
“I know,” he said, “I’m sorry.”
“I never really believed that Mason did it, you know,” Tara confided suddenly. “I didn’t ever believe that Sarah was involved with him. She was very . . . innocent,” Tara tried to explain. “She’d led a very sheltered life with her mother and grandfather. Fred’s a religious zealot. He’s a mean old man,” she said fiercely. “Sarah had a very difficult childhood. We tried to make sure she did all the normal things that children do, but Sue and Fred would just go at her, refuse to let her dress like other teenagers or have fun. Everything was ‘the Devil’. She was even afraid of going to the movies, terrified that the roof would cave in because God was angry with her. She would never have gone with Mason. She would have been too frightened.”
Vega pressed her gently to continue. “But she did go to the protests, though. Wouldn’t Fred and Sue have disapproved of that?”
Tara shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe they hated Joe more? The protests were hurting his business. Or maybe they didn’t know she was going? Hephzibah would have encouraged her. All the kids joined the protests back then. They didn’t even know what they were protesting about, not really. It was just something different, something to break the boredom.”
“But Sarah wasn’t there out of boredom?” Vega asked.
“No. She was passionate about the environment. She volunteered at the hatchery every spare minute she had. It was the only time she defied her grandfather, I think.” Tara smiled at the memory. “We even encouraged her to think about university. A degree in marine biology or something. She was smart enough. But after she argued with Joe, she refused to listen.”
Tara took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes.
“I’ve been over it a million times in my head, Inspector. I know that people around here still think Mason had something to do with Sarah’s death, but the problem with this small town is the gossip. People here love a bit of drama. We don’t have many outsiders, not like other parts of the island, so everyone knows everyone else’s business. And once a story takes hold — well, it’s hard to change people’s minds.”
Vega nodded. He understood this phenomenon. He’d seen people’s reputations ruined forever when they were falsely accused of crimes. Even after they were cleared, people still clung to the notion that there was no smoke without fire. It was one reason he strove to get every detail verified. It was imperative that they arrested the right person.
“You think someone in Coffin Cove knows what really happened to Sarah?” Vega was curious to hear
this woman’s opinion.
“I think so,” Tara admitted. “I can believe that Sarah had some sort of crush on Mason, or a schoolgirl fantasy. He was quite charismatic, and the protests were a bit of excitement. Sarah may have felt some kind of connection to him because of their shared passion for the environment and all that, but I don’t think there was any kind of affair. She just wasn’t sophisticated enough. And she wasn’t a liar either. I wasn’t surprised when they cleared Mason. And you know what, Inspector?” She looked directly at Vega. “I don’t think Joe was surprised either.”
Vega finished his interview with Tara with one last question.
“Have you seen Brian McIntosh in the last few days?”
Tara shook her head. “No, Inspector, I haven’t. He knows better than to come here. I . . . well . . . we told him he wasn’t welcome years ago. And I promise you, if he does show up, I will contact you without hesitation,” she said vehemently. Vega believed her.
Tara laughed — an odd, almost disrespectful sound in a house shrouded in grief. “You know, Inspector, Brian McIntosh is probably the only thing that Sue and I agree on. We both wanted him away from Joe.”
A slight shake of the head from his sergeant who was waiting for him in the driveway confirmed that Brian McIntosh was nowhere to be seen on the property. Vega wasn’t surprised — he’d assessed Tara as a forthright woman with nothing to hide.
They drove away, leaving Tara standing with her hand on the hunched figure of her husband, watching them leave.
Vega swallowed a mouthful of the now lukewarm coffee as he processed his interview with Tara McIntosh and the subsequent visit to Joe’s first wife, Sue McIntosh. It had been a completely different experience.
Tara had given him directions. Sergeant Fowler drove their vehicle down the rutted track from the main road to the valley. She’d stopped briefly and pointed out the washed-out remnants of the hatchery.
“Do you want to have a look around, sir?”
It was raining steadily, and Vega looked at the sagging buildings, partially swallowed up by brambles, and reminded himself that he wasn’t investigating the death of Sarah McIntosh. He was pursuing the killer of Pierre Mason.
“No, that won’t be necessary,” he said.
Sue McIntosh wasn’t nearly as forthcoming as Tara. She sat on the edge of an old sofa, after moving several boxes to make room and finding two empty chairs for Vega and Sergeant Fowler. Fred Harding struggled to get up from his rocking chair. He looked Vega up and down, leaning on his cane, before holding out a withered hand.
Fred still had quite a grip, Vega thought, as he shook the old man’s hand.
Vega’s throat had constricted as soon as he entered the house. The mould must be at dangerous levels. Sue McIntosh and her father Fred seemed unaware, even though the old man was wheezing from the effort of leaving his chair.
Sue said nothing, watching them suspiciously, as Vega explained why he was there.
“You think one of us blew Mason’s head off?” Fred asked and cackled with laughter. “She could, you know,” waving his arm at Sue. “She’s a good shot.”
“Is that right, Mrs McIntosh?” Vega asked.
Sue met his gaze but fidgeted with the frayed cuffs of her faded plaid shirt.
“I just shoot deer, Inspector,” she said quietly.
“You knew that Pierre Mason was in town?” Vega asked.
“Jim Peters and some reporter girl came all the way out to tell us,” Fred snorted. “Why would we care? God took our Sarah. Ain’t nothing we can do about it now. And we wouldn’t waste a bullet on Mason, neither. He has to face God’s judgement now.”
Vega said calmly, “I understand, Mr Harding. But we have to check, you understand.”
“My Sarah had nothing to do with that man,” Sue blurted, looking up. Her voice was emotional. “Those were all lies! I know what they were saying, but it wasn’t true! She was just a child.” Fred Harding thumped his cane on the ground, as if in agreement.
“I understand, Mrs McIntosh,” Vega said gently. “We’ll leave you in peace.”
Thinking about Sue’s outburst now, Vega realized that Tara had been wrong. There was one other thing that the two women agreed upon, apart from their mutual dislike of Brian McIntosh. Neither of them believed that Mason had anything to do with Sarah’s death.
He drained the last of his coffee just as his phone started to vibrate.
“Vega,” he answered. The constable on the other end sounded excited. Vega listened for a minute, then realized that another call was coming in. He checked the phone display and quickly said to the constable, “I have to take this call. Good work. Get everyone together. Briefing in twenty.”
He then answered the incoming call from his headquarters.
“Vega here. I see. I’ll be there right away.”
Vega hurriedly gathered up his documents. He thought about checking out, and then decided to keep the room. Chances were that he’d be back here soon, maybe even tonight.
Another murder on the island? Coincidence?
As Vega locked his motel room door and walked back to the detachment, he reminded himself that he didn’t believe in coincidences.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“I definitely touched a nerve,” Andi said. “Roberts just lost it when I showed him the photograph.”
She and Jim had opted to meet at Andi’s apartment, and he was studying her story wall with interest. Andi made them both a coffee. Hephzibah’s café was busy, and Gavin with his team from the Vancouver Mail had taken Jim up on his offer of office space.
“How’s that sea lion story coming?” Gavin had asked in mock seriousness. There were giggles from the team of reporters, and Andi felt her face heat up. Jim stepped in before she could answer, showing them how to work the antiquated photocopier and writing down the Wi-Fi password.
Gavin’s new assistant, a sleek, meticulously dressed woman, wrinkled her nose and made a show of wiping down a desk and her seat before she set up her laptop.
Andi watched as Gavin stood over her with his hand on her shoulder and murmured something in a low voice that made his assistant beam up at him, showing perfect white teeth.
Andi recognized the move. She bit her lip as Gavin called his team around him and rolled up his sleeves. Andi had seen this countless times before. Gather the troops, make an inspiring speech and send them off to do the work he would ultimately take credit for. She knew she was being bitter, and she turned away to gather up the files she and Jim needed.
“OK, folks,” she heard Gavin say. “We’ll just need to make the best of it. I know you’re missing a decent cup of coffee and proper workspaces, but I’m sure we’re all grateful to the Gazette for making room for us and putting up with the disruption of a full-on investigation. And just remember folks, if you don’t do a professional job, this is where you’ll be if you fuck up. OK, what have we got?”
Andi heard another ripple of amusement from Gavin’s team and she wanted to punch him. She took a step forward and opened her mouth to call him out, tell them all what a lying treacherous bastard Gavin really was, but she felt Jim’s hand on her arm.
“Come on, we haven’t got all day,” he said kindly.
As they were leaving, Gavin’s assistant called out, “Oh excuse me, Andi?”
“’Fraid not,” Andi answered cheerfully as she could, when the assistant asked if there was a separate ladies’ washroom. “Just the one. And you’ll have to hum loudly while you’re in there because the lock doesn’t work.”
Feeling a little better, Andi had walked with Jim to her apartment. As she unlocked the door, she’d been relieved that for once, she’d cleaned up and remembered to get fresh milk. She told Jim to make himself at home and he’d dumped his box of files down in the dining room area that Andi had converted to her workspace.
“This is fascinating,” Jim said, taking a mug of coffee in one hand and gesturing to the story wall with the other.
“It’s all from
your original files,” Andi said. “I just work better if I can see the story in front of me. I can’t explain it.” She stopped and smiled at Jim. “Gavin used to say I was ‘playing detective’. I dunno, maybe he was right.” She paused, horrified to feel tears coming. The humiliation she’d felt back at the office was overwhelming.
“Tell me about Roberts,” Jim said, to Andi’s relief, pointing to the blown-up picture of Captain Gerry Roberts that Andi had copied from the DFO website and pinned to the wall.
“Well, there’s definitely a connection between him and Mason, judging by his reaction. Listen to this.” Andi played back the voice recording of the last few minutes of her meeting.
“Wow. You’re right. Quite the reaction,” Jim agreed.
“Apart from that, I found him to be . . . well, a bit pathetic, really.” Andi described his appearance. “He came across as angry with his lot in life, as if he was owed something. But he came completely unglued when I mentioned Mason.”
“He didn’t say anything about the Pipe Dream or Harry Brown?”
“No. He just got mad when I pointed out the DFO boat.”
“Hmm.”
Jim and Andi sat in silence for a moment. Jim got up and took a few steps back so he could view the wall in its entirety. He studied it for a minute more. Andi kept quiet, knowing that Jim was processing all the information — trying, as she had, to make sense of it all.
“You still think there’s a connection between the two murders?” Jim asked.
“I’m not sure,” Andi admitted. “Now I see the connections in front of me, it’s showing a pattern. See here—” Andi pointed at the wall — “this is new information. Mason has more overlapping connections in Coffin Cove than just the McIntosh family. He’s connected to Hades Fish Co. somehow, and the DFO. Plus, he has an old connection with Harry.” Andi showed Jim a printout.
He sighed. “Yes, I remember. They charged Harry when he threatened Mason with a gun. But in fairness, it was after Mason had rammed his boat and nearly caused a deckhand to go overboard. Look, you can see from this there were multiple witnesses supporting Harry.”
COFFIN COVE a gripping murder mystery full of twists (Coffin Cove Mysteries Book 1) Page 18