COFFIN COVE a gripping murder mystery full of twists (Coffin Cove Mysteries Book 1) by JACKIE ELLIOTT (books for new readers .TXT) 📕

Brenda was loyal to Nikos Palmer. At sixteen, she’d been broke and had a sister to support. Both her parents had died in a car crash. They left virtually nothing behind, just enough for Brenda to pay funeral expenses. She left school and started looking for work.

Nikos Palmer gave her a job.

He was just starting out, a recent immigrant from Greece with his young gorgeous wife. Brenda translated for him when he was dealing with the fishermen, handled all the cash and made sure he wasn’t shorted, and did a lot of the heavy lifting as well. They sold direct to local restaurants at first, so Brenda became skilled at filleting and packing the fish in ice, making sure the quality of produce was top-notch. Soon, restaurants were putting in regular orders with “the Greek”, and they started to expand.

Nikos paid her well and treated her with respect.

One day, he appeared at her tiny rental apartment and handed her a cheque for $10,000 so her sister could go to college. A gift, he said, for her loyalty.

He had her loyalty, she told him, without the gift. But he insisted.

Adrian was another story. Iris’s health had never been good. She lacked the energy to discipline the boy, and his father was working too hard to notice how spoiled and unruly his son was becoming.

Brenda remembered Adrian as a happy toddler, his father sometimes bringing him to work early and having breakfast with the fishermen. Plump and curly haired with long eyelashes, he melted Brenda’s heart, and even she, she had to admit, had been complicit in indulging his every whim.

She sighed. All the old man wanted was to pass on the family business to his son. To see Hades Fish Co. prosper under his son’s management in his golden years.

Sadly, it happened too quickly. Iris passed away and Nikos’s heart wasn’t in it anymore. Knowing that Adrian was far from ready, he implored Brenda to help him.

“He’ll grow into it, Bee, with your help.”

She doubted it. Adrian had none of his father’s work ethic and business savvy. He cared little for the fishermen bound to the company or the staff who worked in the processing plant. He was charming and charismatic but often spiteful. Brenda did not understand where he’d learned how to be so callous. Iris was kind and loving, and Nikos Palmer was a gentle man.

Brenda shook herself mentally. She didn’t have time to lament her boss’s shortcomings. She had work to do. First, she made a call to the fisherman she had put through to Adrian earlier. He’d been waiting for three months for payment. She noted down how much they owed him, reassured him he wouldn’t have to wait much longer and ended the call.

It wasn’t just incompetence. Adrian, with Steve’s guidance, had purposely been squeezing the fishermen tighter and harder, cutting their margins down to the bare bones. They let these hard-working men struggle, waited until they were facing financial ruin, and at the last moment offered to buy their quotas and licenses. It seemed like a good deal on the surface. A chunk of cash to help them out of a hole, and they could still rent back the license and fish for Hades Fish Co. Quick and easy, Adrian explained. “Just to help out.”

It came with strings, of course. The fishermen were bound to sell only to Hades, who controlled the price and charged a hefty fee for the license rental. Some fishermen were literally working for free.

Brenda shuffled through the papers and debris on Amy’s desk. Amy was responsible for processing all the marketing and PR invoices. Brenda tutted at the extravagance. Adrian had cleared out his father’s office and ordered top-of-the-range new furniture — a solid wood desk, leather office chair, two overstuffed easy chairs and a coffee table. He also bought an espresso machine — Brenda couldn’t think why, Adrian wouldn’t dream of making his own coffee — and he also expensed his thousand-dollar suits to the business. Brenda sighed, but it wasn’t why she was rifling through these papers. She found the stack of cheques that Amy had prepared for Adrian’s signature. Brenda wrote out a cheque for the fisherman and slid it into the pile. She knew that neither Adrian nor Amy would notice. And although Amy jumped at any opportunity to fawn over the boss, she always dumped the cheques on Brenda’s desk to put into envelopes and mail out.

Satisfied that she had made good on her promise, Brenda turned her attention to Adrian’s office.

A slight waft of expensive cologne lingered in the air. It was hard not to compare. Brenda was wistful for a moment.

Nikos had an open-door policy. He spent many hours with fishermen and staff, listening to their problems and handing out his own brand of forthright advice. He was the heart of the company, he liked to say, while Brenda was the head.

The office had always smelled of sweat and the ocean back then. A working smell, she thought, and she missed it.

Adrian was careless with paperwork. The top of his desk was polished, and neatly arranged with his iMac and an expensive planner, still in its plastic wrapping. When Brenda pulled out the drawers, they were stuffed with papers. The top one was just credit card receipts, paper clips and old Post-it notes.

But in the bottom drawer, Brenda found two manila folders. She laid them open on the desk and went through the contents carefully. There was nothing unusual about the contents for a fishing company, at first glance. Shipping and packing receipts, export documents, everything that Brenda would expect to find — except that Adrian hardly ever bothered himself with the daily operations of the processing plant. Usually, Brenda would have all this paperwork to carefully record each incoming delivery. So why had Adrian kept this