by Tom Lowe
“It’s not.”
She turned slightly to face me. “Are you sure? I know you love me. I know you were devastated when our unborn child was killed. I know in my heart that we are supposed to be together because it feels so right. But, as much as I love you, I don’t want that to ever get in the way of your sense of altruism for others, the humanity you have. You once told me you felt you had an obligation to help those who’ve been terribly wronged … particularly where the justice system had allowed them to fall through the cracks. I think the word obligation sums up every cell in your being. Don’t be or become something you’re not for me or because of me. I’ve never been a damsel in distress, nor will I ever be. I want to share your life, not change it. Okay? Tell me you understand, that you really understand what I’m saying. And promise me you won’t change who you are in your core to accommodate me. Okay? You mean too much to me for you not to … for this not to be made clear.”
I touched her right cheek in the breaking dawn, her eyes searching my face, her love as real and pure as the new light evaporating the shadows around us. “I promise. I understand exactly what you’re saying, and I love you for saying it.” I kissed her, Max cutting her eyes up at the both of us.
I thought about my bond and covenant with this woman beside me, the new and rare blessing I’d been given—that since the death of Sherri, I’d found someone to love again. When Sherri was alive, when ovarian cancer was ravaging her body, she asked me to leave my job as a homicide detective because of what she said it was doing to me. “It’s subtle, but it’s there, Sean. You don’t have a cancer. But you do have something that eats inside you like a disease. It invades your heart and battles your soul because it’s spawned out of evil. Don’t allow it permission to rob you of what you give others … joy and often a second chance at life itself. Promise me that, okay?”
After Sherri’s death, I broke the promise I’d made to her when I found a severely beaten woman on the banks of the St. Johns River near my cabin. She’d been a victim of sex trafficking, and she had become a victim of a judgmental and bureaucratic justice system that couldn’t or wouldn’t move fast enough to protect her or others in her situation … or bring her justice. I felt obligated to help and, in my heart, I knew Sherri would have been the first to encourage me to do so. And now, years after Sherri’s death, the changes that have come into my life as a result of the promise I made to her, have made me, in turn … at least I hope, a more balanced and better man for Wynona. I looked over at Wynona, her inner and outer beauty radiant in the dawn. I had just promised her I wouldn’t change who I was, but I knew that pact could be dangerous. The man I am seems to attract danger because it lurks in the shadows of places I feel compelled to enter.
We watched the sunrise over the ocean, a powder blue sky streaked with brushstrokes of pink, the clouds blushed the color of a ripe mango. In the far distance, to the south, I saw gray clouds building, the breeze picking up, a halyard on a nearby sailboat tinkling against the mast like an alarm clock.
FIFTY-SIX
From the wheelhouse of his shrimp boat, Captain Billy Lee watched the morning sunrise above a barrier island on Florida’s west coast. Lee and his crew of three men, left Apalachicola in the Florida panhandle just after midnight to begin their ten-day shrimping trip south, deep into the Gulf of Mexico. Lee, pushing fifty, was tall and lean, ropy muscles, face and arms whipped by the sun and salt through decades of working on shrimp boats. He stood in the wheelhouse at dawn. The wrinkles on the edges of his eyes looked like scars with the depth of age and experience at sea. He wore a pair of ripped jeans, a long-sleeved western shirt, and a sweat-stained baseball cap with a leaping sailfish logo just above the bill.
The sun was barely peaking over the tree line in the east, clearing the barrier islands of Saint Joseph Sound. Soon Captain Billy would be getting close to Clearwater, Florida. They’d navigate the sixty-foot shrimp boat, Dixie Line, west of the waters off Marco Island before dropping the nets and dragging for shrimp, crisscrossing the center of the Gulf, before eventually turning north and heading to its home port of Apalachicola.
Captain Billy sat back in his chair inside the wheelhouse, a cup of black coffee in one hand, a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. He looked at the boat’s tall outriggers, two crew members drinking coffee and repairing some of the netting. A half-dozen hungry gulls followed behind Dixie Line, sailing above the wake kicked up from the diesels and the boat’s wide hull.
The captain reached for the volume control on the radio built into the console. He wanted to catch the day’s news headlines before switching over to find a station that played country music. Just as the sun was like an orange match flaring behind the palms and windswept oaks, which appeared to grow more in the opposite direction from the surf on the remote island, Captain Billy looked toward the beach.
A male news reporter on the radio said, “Traffic is beginning to build on the interstate highways entering Tampa. Drivers should avoid the area where I-4 and I-275 merge. There’s a two-vehicle crash, just south of the Nebraska Avenue overpass and traffic has come to a near standstill. Commuters are moving well on the Solomon Freeway into the city. Here’s today’s headlines in ninety seconds from Denise Kerry on the news desk.”
A female reporter said, “Thanks, Russ. At this hour, police are intensifying their investigation into the mermaid murders—the bizarre deaths of two college-aged women, their bodies found in mermaid costumes, in different beach areas on Florida’s east coast. Detectives aren’t commenting as to whether or not they have a suspect. There have been no arrests. We’ve learned that the costumes the women were wearing came from the set of the big budget movie, Atlantis, in production around Florida. The two women, we’re told, had either made the final cut or had landed parts as an extras, reportedly to play mermaids in the film. Producers are saying that the fact the women were wearing costumes from the movie set is a horrible coincidence. They stress there is not any connection with their movie and the murders, beyond the fact the women were to be in the film. They also say they’re cooperating fully with the investigation and will make anyone on the crew available for questioning. In other news, Governor Jim Johnson will deliver his budget proposal to state lawmakers in Tallahassee today. It’s expected to be a fight in the senate where he lacks partisan support for his proposed environmental bill.”
Captain Billy turned down the volume as he lit a cigarette and looked toward the east, at the remote barrier islands. Probably too early for sunbathers, he thought. Still it was always worth a look on the more secluded beaches where some of the ladies occasionally sunbathed in their birthday suits. He sipped his coffee, smoke from the burning cigarette drifting close to his left eye, a gold cross on a chain hanging from his neck to his exposed chest under the unbuttoned shirt. Billy slid back one of the salt-stained windows, his eyes tracing the shoreline.
Something caught his immediate attention. He grabbed his binoculars.
A woman on the beach.
A mermaid on the beach.
“Oh shit,” Billy said, reaching for the throttle to slow Dixie Line and to make a portside turn to get a closer look without running aground. He dropped the half-smoked cigarette into an empty Maxwell House coffee can, lifting the old pair of binoculars again to his eyes. He could easily see a blonde girl in a mermaid tail, the girl propped up against the trunk of a bent palm tree, her face turned toward the Gulf. He held the binoculars on her, hoping he’d see a sign of life, the movement of a hand, or the turn of her head. Nothing. Nothing except a ghastly look on her bluish face.
He threw the boat in neutral, tossed the binoculars onto the captain’s chair and left the wheelhouse, coming down to the deck where two unshaven shrimpers looked up as he approached. “Dead girl on the beach!”
“What?” asked a stocky deckhand, wearing a baseball cap backwards.
The other crew member, a man with the sinewy build of a young construction worker, looked toward the shoreline. “I see somethin’ ov
er there. Looks green.”
“What you see is a girl in a mermaid tail, and she looks dead. Drop anchor. I’m gonna radio the Coast Guard. If one of y’all can get a good enough cell phone signal, call 9-1-1.”
FIFTY-SEVEN
After three days in the boatyard, Dragonfly was ready for her slow roll to re-enter the water. Wynona, Max and I watched the mobile crane operator lift and carry our boat like a giant with an infant in a sling. It seemed effortless, regardless of the fact that Dragonfly weighed more than 25,000 pounds. After a half hour, the crane rolled on its four massive tires to the water’s edge where Dragonfly would be lowered slowly into the marina water.
“Let’s hope he doesn’t drop her the last few feet,” Wynona said as we walked closer to the operation. Two additional boatyard employees worked in tandem with the lift operator, each using hand signs to signal the final logistics.
The operator lowered Dragonfly into the water, and the workers scrambled around her, pulling hydraulic switches to make sure the large sling straps were removed without scrapping the freshly painted bottom. After another ten minutes they were done. I thanked each of the three men, tipping them some money for their extra efforts, from the time they hauled Dragonfly out of the water, painted and made repairs to the moment they delivered her safely back to the water.
I returned to Wynona and Max, motioning toward the sailboat. “Let’s board her and make our way back over to L dock. It’s time to put the finishing touches on this lovely lady before you two ladies join me for the sailing trip of a lifetime.”
Max barked, sauntering in front of us down the dock where Dragonfly was tied off, one of the boatyard workers waiting for us to board before he removed the mooring lines to shove off. As I helped Wynona step aboard with Max in her arms, I noticed someone coming toward us. He looked out of place. Wearing a sports coat, white shirt and tie in a land of shorts and flip-flops. I recognized him, his brisk walk, moving with the stride of a former military police officer before he switched careers and joined the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office.
Detective Dan Grant was walking down the main dock, sunglasses on, head straight ahead, looking in our direction. I knew he’d come to see me.
And I knew that whatever he wanted to tell me wasn’t going to be good news.
I signaled for the boatyard worker to hold off on releasing all the mooring lines. He nodded, and I waited for Grant to get closer. “Long time no see,” the detective said approaching Dragonfly. “Last time I was here in the marina, you didn’t have a sailboat. I walked down L dock, happened to run into your pal on the trawler, Dave Collins, and he told me you’d probably be over here.”
“It’s good to see you, Dan. I want you to meet Wynona Osceola. She’s on leave from the Seminole PD where she works as a detective. Prior to that, she was a special agent with the FBI.”
Grant nodded. “I’m impressed. It’s good to meet you.”
Wynona smiled. “Nice to meet you as well.” She set Max down in the cockpit.
Grant shifted his eyes back to me. “If you have a minute, Sean, I’d like to run something by you.”
“Sure, where are you parked?”
“In the main lot, opposite the Tiki Bar restaurant.”
“We’re heading in that general direction. Come aboard. We’re only taking Dragonfly back to L dock. We can talk on the boat as we motor over there. Whatever you want to tell me, you can say it in front of Wynona.”
“Fair enough.”
He stepped aboard, and I signaled the boatyard worker to release the lines. Wynona sat down in the cockpit near the helm. I started the diesel and used the bow-thrusters to get us out into the open marina water. As soon as we cleared the end of the service docking area, Grant said, “What a nice boat. How’d you come to name her Dragonfly?”
“I didn’t name her. It’s the name she came with, and I didn’t feel any need to change it.”
“When did you buy her?”
“I didn’t buy Dragonfly. The boat was a gift. It was given to me as a favor for something I did to try to help someone.”
Grant crossed his arms, a passing white Hatteras reflecting off his dark glasses. “You most have done somebody one a hell of a favor.”
I said nothing, watching Max scamper toward the bow. I waited for Grant to tell me why he’d come down to the marina. He looked at Max for a moment and said, “Your little dog is fearless. She runs around this boat with no apparent concern of falling off.”
I smiled. “Sometimes Max thinks she’s a Labrador retriever.”
“I see.” He paused and turned to me. “Your former colleague, Ron Hamilton, sends his regards.”
“Did he send you, too.”
“No, this is my idea. Ron and I are working an interagency investigation into the senseless killings of the two young women in mermaid costumes.” Grant gave me a synopsis of his investigation with Ron, telling me what he thought I should know, adding. “And a third body was found. I just got back from there.”
I saw Wynona turn her head. “Where?” I asked.
“On the west coast of Florida this time. She was found in a mermaid tail on Caladesi Beach north of Clearwater. It’s an island, and it’s a state park. A beautiful and pristine place, like Florida once was. The perp must have used a boat to drop the body there. Like the other two deaths, he staged this one. A captain on a shrimp boat going by the island spotted the body on the beach, propped up against a coconut palm tree. Her face was turned toward the Gulf of Mexico, like she was looking out at sea.”
Wynona asked. “Do you know where the mermaid tail came from?”
Grant nodded. “Like the other two, it was one of the costumes from the set of the movie, Atlantis. Victim’s name is Nicole Banard. She’d just finished her senior year of high school, heading to the University of Florida in the fall. She was a competitive swimmer, and she was cast as an extra—a mermaid in the movie.” He told us about the interviews he and Ron Hamilton had done with the film production crew and some of the cast members. “We pulled phone records on more than a dozen of those who had the most access to the extras, casting people, the various assistant directors—the art and lighting people. A few outwardly appear more than suspect … a hand full of them. Ron and I were talking about how they all hold their cards so close to their chests. It’s hard to tell if they’re being reticent to protect themselves or their damn movie.”
I steered Dragonfly around the docks and toward the center of the marina, moving in the direction of L dock, getting closer to the Tiki Bar. “Did the victim have a speaking part in the movie?”
“I’m not sure about the third victim. The first two had made the short list for landing speaking roles, which they were practicing. Why do you ask?”
“Just curious.”
“Ron Hamilton’s CSI techs lifted a handprint off the glass window that looks into a large aquarium in the Odyssey Restaurant in Miami, where the second vic worked as a mermaid. It matched the handprint you found in the beach sand on top of the abandoned turtle’s nest.”
I said nothing, watching a 40-foot Sea Ray puttering in from the Halifax River, heading toward L dock.
“How’d you know that was the perp?” Grant asked.
“I didn’t until you just confirmed that possibility.”
“But you had a helluva suspicion that it was him. Based on everything I’ve updated you on, what’s your gut telling you? We’ve ruled out the ex-boyfriend, Craig Blake. If it’s one of the two or three dubious people working on the movie set, we haven’t found any tangible evidence. And, now, all we have is hypothesis and pure supposition, although for my money—and I’m off the record here, the director and the art director look like they could be in cahoots together. But, according to their phone records and Google Earth logistics, they rarely leave the set. Ron and I are stumped. And, in the meantime, young women are dying at the hands of this insane criminal. Any thoughts?”
“It sounds like your team, and that of Ron’s, are following e
very trail and lead you have.”
“But they’re all going into rabbit holes.”
“You told us about the diatoms found in the water samples taken from the lungs of the first two victims. Odds are you’ll find that again in water removed from the lungs of the third girl, if she drowned. That said, maybe look at your suspect pool in terms of people who aren’t from Los Angeles or Hollywood.”
“What are you suggesting, Sean?”
“Maybe your suspect is a local, at least someone who lives in Florida and has easy and secluded access to a freshwater body of water—a lake, pond, or even a large aquarium.”
Grant was quiet, his eyes looking at nothing, thoughts moving fast.
Wynona stood and said, “Detective Grant, you’d mentioned the huge number of extras that the studio has hired and continues to hire. For a big movie with that kind of budget and with a storyline encompassing the lost continent of Atlantis, it requires a large population of people, including gods, goddesses, and of course, mermaids and mermen. What if the unknown subject is one of those actors hired as extras and, maybe, as Sean suggested, someone local or a Florida resident with the area knowledge and easy access to secluded water?”
Grant raised his eyebrows. “That’s a large pool of suspects.”
“Maybe you can narrow it somewhat. When I worked in the Bureau, one of the studies we did on psychopathic killers revealed that many of them had malfunctions with the orbital cortex in the brain—the area right above the eyes. Sort of like lights out in the area. A fixation in another. Often, a combination of genetics, a violent childhood environment, neglect, sometimes brain damage, and how they’re linked together spells psychopathic killer. These murders sound like the work of a psychopath. Were all the victims raped?”