Murder At The Marina by Jackie Sharp

Author:Jackie Sharp [Sharp, Jackie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2024-09-05T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 25

Staff Sergeant Croud took a mouthful of his Mocha Choca Crunch Muffin. Wenda had found one from yesterday. It was stale. He chewed, but it tasted like a ball of cardboard in his mouth.

He washed it down with a mouthful of peppermint tea. He couldn’t drink coffee after noon because he would be up all night with the jitters.

He hoped this nasty business was behind them now. Jenkins and Reynolds would bring Jackson in, and he’d be charged. Sure, they didn’t have much evidence, but that wasn’t the point. Jackson was a violent criminal and should be off the streets. The good citizens of Shell Bay would be relieved, and credit him with a job well done.

Staff Sergeant Croud felt a ball of guilt form in the pit of his stomach. It sat there, heavier than the stale muffin he’d just forced down.

Damn it, for his entire career he’d tried to do a good job. It wasn’t his fault that Shell Bay had suffered a recession, that businesses had shut down, and his budget had been cut. It had happened all over the Island, all over the country, and whenever people had no money, crime went up.

The business people could think what they want. It’s ridiculous to say that Melthorpe kept the crime down, for God’s sake. He was a thug; he ran a protection racket, he actually threatened people and now they spoke about him like he was a kindly benefactor.

Just the other day, at the Rotary meeting, someone had said, “At least he was an honourable criminal. He protected his own. He made sure the streets were safe.”

An honourable criminal? Croud snorted. When he put Melthorpe behind bars, he’d done his duty, and that was that. And now he’d do his duty again.

But there was something nagging at the back of his mind.

Sighing, he stood and went to his filing cabinet. He pulled a large bunch of keys out of his pocket and sorted through them until he found a tiny brass one. He used it to unlock the cabinet and then selected a thin manila file. Locking the cabinet behind him, he went back to the desk, sat down, and opened the file.

He’d done this many times over the years, and most recently, yesterday.

In the front of the file was a transparent plastic sleeve that contained a single sheet of paper and an envelope.

He’d received the message two days before at his home. The words were typed, but Croud was certain he knew who’d sent it. He’d put on thin latex gloves before carefully opening the envelope and reading the message. Then he’d slipped them inside the plastic sleeve and brought them to work, to keep in this file until he decided what to do next.

He read the six words printed on the paper before closing the file with trembling hands. This had to be a coincidence, surely?

I’m coming for all of you.

He’d never dreamed that any of this would lead to murder. He’d expected blackmail, or a brick through the window, maybe.

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