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

We know how to find you. Keep your mouth shut.

Gerry Roberts came to rely on the cash. By now he had twin daughters. His wife wanted them enrolled in a private French immersion school. She wanted a sports car and expected two foreign vacations per year.

Sometimes he didn’t hear from Hilstead for months. So he borrowed money to make up the shortfall.

Some nights he couldn’t sleep, worrying about paying bills and getting caught. He got the sense that he was being sidelined a little. Paranoia set in so he started having a few drinks in the evening.

Just to help me relax, he told himself.

One day he was called in to talk to his superior.

His hands went clammy. His neck felt constricted in his shirt. He was sure that this was it. He would be fired, or worse, turned over to the police.

But he was wrong. His superior officer told Gerry curtly that he was being transferred to a desk job.

His first reaction was relief. Then horror. Pushing paper? And more importantly, no more money?

Gerry Roberts was smart enough not to argue. He felt certain that the department managers had an inkling about his lucrative side business. After all, it was hard to keep a secret in this town. His wife openly boasted about their wealth, and it wouldn’t take a genius to put two and two together. He decided it was probably a blessing. They had given him an off-ramp and he should take it. He’d had a good run.

“Ah well, Captain,” Hilstead said in that mocking tone when he told him, “I guess our business is concluded.” He took it well, Roberts thought. His wife did not. Especially when Gerry told her that their household budget would be severely curtailed.

Gerry and his wife argued. Her spending habits remained the same. Gerry’s credit card debt soared and his drinking increased.

He couldn’t remember when he started taking a mickey of vodka to work. It just happened. He only intended to have the odd shot at the end of a busy day — to unwind, he told himself. But soon he was filling up a water bottle with booze and taking regular sips during the day.

He was sure nobody noticed.

Then he arrived at work one morning to find the manager of his department and two of his colleagues waiting in his office. His secretary was nowhere to be seen.

“Well, what’s going on here?” Gerry asked. “What can I do for you gentlemen?”

His colleagues shuffled their feet awkwardly and refused to look at him directly. Finally, his manager told him. His secretary had requested a transfer because of his drinking. He smelled of booze most days and slurred his speech. He often fell asleep in his office and she was tired of covering for him.

“Go to rehab,” his manager said. “Get help.”

Gerry Roberts denied it angrily. “Bullshit!”

His manager handed him a letter. “You have no choice, Gerry. Get help or be fired. You are suspended as from today.”

Gerry’s bravado deflated. He snatched the letter and drove home.

His wife was playing golf, and she arrived home to find him passed out. She read the letter, and when Gerry came round, he found another letter. She was leaving. She was humiliated. He had humiliated his family. He was a loser and a disgrace. She wanted a divorce. He staggered out to the car and drove to the liquor store and bought another bottle of vodka.

For a few months, he tried. He refused to go to rehab, but he went to AA meetings. He hated them. He looked around the room, the earnest faces clutching plastic cups of coffee, taking turns to air their dirty laundry, he thought. He refused a sponsor, refused to speak, and grudgingly held hands and muttered the prayers and phrases that were supposed to cure him, he supposed.

After a month, he went back to work. He found himself in a tiny windowless office with a new secretary.

After a bitter divorce, he sold the house, the boat and the new car. It covered his debt, but not the financial settlement to his wife and children. So he took out a new loan and moved into a basement suite.

And this is it, he thought. This is how it’s going to be. For fucking ever.

He didn’t hear from Steve Hilstead again. He turned up for work, put the hours in, paid his wife every month and saw his daughters less and less. The only change to his dismal routine was the occasional new secretary seated outside his office.

Until a year ago.

Gerry’s cell phone rang that day, and the display showed only Unknown Number. He answered.

A voice he hadn’t heard in a long while said, “Captain Gerry Roberts, how are ya?”

“I can’t do anything for you,” he said abruptly and pressed the End Call button. The phone rang again an hour later. And then again in the evening and twice the following day, before Gerry finally answered. “Look,” he said angrily.

“Now, now, Captain,” Hilstead said pleasantly. “I don’t need you to do anything. All I need from you is some information. And I’ll be paying you, of course.”

Gerry was silent. He needed cash.

“What information?” he asked at last.

Hilstead explained that he and a very good friend had got themselves in a spot of bother. Mr Nguyen, his friend, would be grateful in the usual way if Captain Roberts could provide a heads-up on an operation that the department was currently conducting.

“I don’t have access to that information,” Gerry said.

“Sure you do.” Hilstead’s voice turned hard. “I need that information, Captain. Or . . .” He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to. Gerry shivered, imagining further humiliation, if that were possible — no job, no pension, maybe even a conviction.

“I’ll try,” he said and scribbled down Hilstead’s