The Mermaid Murders

by Josh Lanyon

  “Confirmed.” Kennedy pulled back the slide on his Glock and inspected the chamber.

  Jason watched him perform the routine weapon check with a rising sense of tension. He couldn’t help noting the dryness of his mouth, the tightness of his chest, the knots in his stomach. What the hell was the matter with him? Did he imagine they were going to get into a shootout?

  No, it was nothing that specific, nothing that comprehensible, and this general and irrational anxiety was infuriating.

  He pulled his own weapon and checked it briskly, glad his hands seemed steady even if his heart was knocking around in his chest. He reholstered his pistol.

  Boxner had already started down the trail, moving quickly as though determined to get this over with. Dale looked after him, looked at Gervase, shrugged, and followed.

  “Ready?” Gervase asked.

  “Let’s go,” Kennedy said, leading the way.

  It took a little over an hour to make the trek, and that was due more to the caution that had to be exercised crawling through the Sleeping Beauty wall of thorns growing under the underpass.

  The sun was warm on Jason’s head and shoulders and welcome after the gloomy shade of the woods. The air was pungently sweet with the scent of dead blossoms and baked earth. He could hear the hum of bees, the faraway rush of the main highway, and the crunch—and occasional slide—of Kennedy’s boots ahead of him.

  Jason made sure to keep right on Kennedy’s tail, lest Kennedy, now aware of the shooting, get it into his head that Jason wasn’t physically fit either.

  Jason had to give him credit. Kennedy was in terrific shape, and Jason was working to keep up with him. Mandatory retirement age for a special agent was fifty-seven, so Kennedy was probably ultra-conscious of maintaining his level of fitness.

  Gervase and Simpson followed at a slower pace.

  At last Jason topped the rise and spotted the mill below. A long stone building with a red roof—now half caved in—sat on what appeared to be a sand bar. To the side of the building a giant water wheel lying half in and half out of the trickle of water was all that was left of the former river that had powered the mill for a hundred years.

  Boxner was right. This was one hell of a distance from the main drag.

  And still farther to go. Through a wall of trees Jason could see rooftops and chimneys…a church spire. Rexford.

  Jason wiped his forehead and took a couple of swigs from his water bottle.

  Kennedy was already halfway down the right fork in the trail. Jason glanced back. Gervase and Simpson were coming up fast.

  “That’s the cemetery to your left,” Gervase called.

  Jason scanned what looked like a swampy meadow and spotted the overgrown cemetery, headstones like scattered teeth and bones.

  “They didn’t bother to move the graves?”

  Gervase shook his head.

  “That can’t have gone over well.”

  “No. People were pretty bitter. Course it was a long time ago.”

  Jason continued the rest of the way with the chief and Simpson, listening absently to their conversation, his gaze on Kennedy striding briskly ahead.

  At last they reached Rexford, which had been reduced to the long line of its former Main Street. Everything to the east was now at least partially under water. And to the west, the woodland was hungrily reclaiming its own. There were houses all but engulfed in trees—branches bursting through windows and doors and spilling out chimneys like green smoke.

  At first glance, Main Street looked almost normal—until you realized in several cases only the front façade of the building was still standing. Most of the roofs were punctured with large holes. The black and gaping eyes and mouths of broken windows formed a line of shocked faces staring at the ruins of what had once been a small but thriving town.

  Boxner and Dale waited with Kennedy, who was checking his phone.

  Jason asked, “Are you getting a signal out here?”

  “No.”

  Gervase said, “George, me and you will take the houses down by the water. Boyd, you and Officer Dale go south, and Agents West and Kennedy can take the north part of town.”

  “Got it,” Jason said.

  “I can’t emphasize enough the need for caution. And if you do find anything…”

  No need to spell that out.

  Jason and Kennedy started north, going from building to building.

  It was not a fast process. Each building had to be checked, room by room. In some cases that could be managed with a glance. In other cases, it meant walking up rickety stairs or crossing loudly creaking floors.

  “Why would people just leave everything?” Jason studied a faded horsehair sofa that was now home to a family of rats.

  “They’d wait too long, hoping for a reprieve,” Kennedy answered. “It’s what people do. And then some of them couldn’t afford to move everything. Some of them just gave up and walked away.”

  It was a relief to step outside into fresh air and sunshine. The air inside the buildings was hot and humid and fetid.

  Kennedy unscrewed the lid to his water bottle and took a drink. Jason did the same. His gaze fell on a white one-story building with pseudoclassical architectural elements.

  “What is that? A theater?”

  “I don’t think it’s large enough.”

  They crossed the street. A faded sign read Lyceum of the Aquatic.

  “A lyceum? In a village this size?” Jason asked.

  “What’s the right size village for a lyceum?”

  “I just mean, why would this be here?”

  “Why would anything be anywhere?”

  Uh. Okay, that was one way to look at it.

  Kennedy went through the open square entrance framed between Ionic entablature and columns. A crumbling and weathered frieze offered images of sea creatures which would never have appeared in genuine classical architecture.

  Jason followed.

  A small entry hall with a boarded-up ticket kiosk opened onto a larger central room. In the wide doorway with its fake and chipped pillars sat an old-fashioned diving helmet perched on a pedestal as though someone had forgotten it on their way out of the lyceum.

  Which was probably about right. Rexford had certainly experienced its share of looting and vandalism. The mystery was that it hadn’t been picked to its bones.

  And speaking of bones…

  “What the hell?” Jason murmured.

  The lighter squares and rectangles on the floor spoke to exhibit cases safely removed to new and dryer locations. Embedded within the walls were what was left of four natural-history dioramas that must have been too complicated or too expensive to be relocated. Unfortunately, time, weather, and other predators had all but demolished the cases.

  All that remained of the creatures within were bones and feathers scattered across peeling seascapes.

  There was a sharp cracking sound as Kennedy put his foot through the floor. “Damn.” He called over his shoulder, “Watch where you’re walking. The floor is rotten in places.”

  That was an understatement. In some places the floor was gone or was only represented by a few remaining floorboards. Through the gaps Jason could see only shining darkness. Water?

  Their radios gave a burst of static as Gervase requested their status. Kennedy paused to reply, and Jason—his attention caught by an unnatural pattern in the blanket of dust—cautiously continued into the next room.

  Were those boot prints? He wasn’t sure.

  His nostrils were twitching at new and even stranger scents. Mold and decay and unidentifiable chemicals. Hopefully not some kind of poison gas. At this point, nothing would surprise him.

  And a few feet farther on, any hope of confirming his suspicion of footprints was lost. The floor was covered with leaves and twigs and dirt thanks to a giant hole in the roof. In fact, a large tree branch had fallen into the room.

  The leaves on the branches were green, so this latest destruction was fairly recent.

/>   He could hear Kennedy talking from across the hall. Jason looked around himself. Not including the giant branch filling the middle of the space, this room was also empty, but the walls were studded with what appeared to be a variety of ferocious-looking jaws. Shark jaws?

  All those rows of enormous teeth were disturbing. At least to someone who spent as much time surfing and diving as Jason. Not that he didn’t know he was sharing the ocean, but somehow…

  “West?” Kennedy called.

  “In here.”

  He realized what he had mistaken for a square shadow on the wall was actually another doorway. Or, more exactly, the square entrance into what appeared to be a small antechamber. Jason walked toward it.

  The sickly smell of decay and rot were much stronger in this part of the building. His stomach churned with a mix of unease and distaste.

  Without the flood of natural light supplied by the giant hole in the roof, it was harder to see more than a few steps ahead. Jason could just make out what looked like one exhibit case. A long, narrow glass box that reminded him suddenly and unnervingly of a coffin.

  He heard Kennedy’s footsteps approaching.

  He stepped forward, feeling drawn toward the case, unable to tear his gaze from the dark misshapen thing lying inside on folds of blue material.

  He gazed down through the grimy glass. Peered more closely, trying to make sense of what he saw. His heart seemed to stop in his chest.

  “Kennedy?” His voice sounded weird. He felt almost light-headed, unable to tear his gaze away.

  “What have you got?”

  “I don’t…”

  It was probably about six feet long. Most of it was tail. A fish tail with scales. The other half appeared to be human, but something terrible had happened to it—to her. Her flesh had been dried and blackened until it had shriveled like leather. It almost had a fuzzy look to it, but maybe that was dust. Though how could that much dust have collected so quickly? Her hair was waist long and coarse, yellow-gray in color, her arms with those strange misshapen hands were outstretched as though she had died in agony, and the expression on her face—could you call those bared jagged teeth and subhuman features a face really?—supported that impression.

  “West?” Kennedy said in a very different voice. “What’s the matter?”

  “God. God.” Jason threw Kennedy a horrified look. “Is that…”

  Kennedy was staring at the contents of the case too. He shook his head. As if he didn’t know, or it wasn’t what Jason thought it was?

  Because Jason wasn’t sure what he thought it was. Something dead. Something mummified. Something ghastly.

  “It can’t be,” he breathed, leaning closer. “But then what is that?”

  To his astonishment, Kennedy suddenly laughed. Jason straightened, stared at him. Despite the gloom, Kennedy’s eyes were glittering points of blue, lit with genuine amusement.

  “Unless I miss my guess,” he said, “that’s a Fiji Mermaid.”

  Chapter Eight

  “A…”

  “Yeah. Look at the head. That’s a monkey with what looks like a horse’s tail glued to it.”

  Jason looked again. Really looked this time. Relief washed through him.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he muttered. Had he not been a thirty-three-year-old man—and an FBI agent to boot—he’d probably have been blushing. What the hell had he thought? That it was a real mermaid?

  No. He had been hanging around Kennedy too long. He had imagined something much worse, something much more horrific. That this was Rebecca and her killer had mutilated her and somehow transformed her into this monstrosity.

  And monstrosity was the right word. Jason had never seen a Fiji or Feejee Mermaid before, but he’d heard of them, knew that they had once been common features in nineteenth century sideshows. The mummified “mermaids” were said to be a traditional art form perfected by fishermen in Japan and the East Indies who constructed faux sea creatures by stitching the upper bodies of juvenile apes onto the bodies of fish. One theory was they were created for use in religious ceremonies, but most likely they were manufactured as curiosities, gruesome souvenirs hocked to western adventurers and explorers to amaze and confound the folks back home.

  Most of the tail of this one was only a skeletal outline, the scales eaten by mice, some of their skeletons lying dead in the case too.

  “I’m glad I didn’t have lunch.” Jason couldn’t look Kennedy in the face. “I’m not sure I’ll have dinner.” He finally risked a glance, and Kennedy’s eyes met his. “Ever again.”

  Kennedy grinned. “You’re too sensitive for this line of work, West.”

  Jason was reminded of Boxner’s sarcastic “the sensitive artiste.” The difference here was Kennedy was joking. There was no malice, no underlying insult. Kennedy could tease him like this because he didn’t think for a minute Jason was too sensitive for the job. He might have other reservations about Jason, but sensitivity levels—whatever those might mean—were not a factor.

  “Yeah, well.” Jason was still feeling sheepish.

  “I thought you were the expert on museums?”

  “Museums. Not…House of Horrors.” Jason made a face. Kennedy laughed again. He had a nice laugh, deep and good-natured. Startlingly attractive.

  “Houses of what was that?”

  Was Kennedy actually joking with him? Jason was so surprised he didn’t have a reply.

  Kennedy was chuckling softly as he moved away, leaving the antechamber. He edged around the fallen branch. “Did you check this other room?”

  “I didn’t realize there was another room.” Jason continued to study the mermaid for another second or two.

  He turned and left the side chamber. There was no sign of Kennedy in the shark room. Or no. There he was, standing in the shadows of the doorway across the room.

  Something about the way he stood there, motionless…

  As Jason stared, Kennedy raised his radio and said in a flat voice, “Kennedy to Gervase. Come in.”

  A metallic voice replied, “Gervase. Go ahead, Kennedy.”

  “We’ve got her.”

  Jason started forward.

  “Alive?”

  “Negative.”

  Jason joined Kennedy in the entrance of the second antechamber.

  “10-4. What’s your location?”

  “The aquatic thing. Museum.”

  “We’re on our way. Out.”

  Jason gazed down at the nude female body dumped to the side of the doorway. Easy enough to miss if you weren’t checking inside each and every room.

  It was puzzling to him this poor broken doll of a real-life girl seemed somehow less shocking than the Fiji Mermaid. Maybe because the mermaid had been utterly unexpected and this…sadly, this was not unexpected. As much as he had hoped—as they had all hoped—it would not turn out like this, it was what they had all feared from the start.

  Rebecca lay on her side. Her yellow-blonde hair was loose and covered her face—which was fine with Jason. He did not want to see her face. The photos would be bad enough and couldn’t be avoided. Her skin was gray, and there was darker mottling around her face and shoulders. There was bruising and discoloration on her buttocks and hips.

  Kennedy pulled out a pair of thin blue latex gloves and squatted down facing the body. Unhurriedly, he put on the gloves, took his pen and gently lifted the girl’s upper jaw.

  Jason opened his mouth to ask what Kennedy was doing, but he stopped at an unmistakable sound.

  Something had fallen out of the girl’s mouth. Dropped out and was rolling on the wooden floor. Jason knew it even if he couldn’t see over Rebecca’s shoulder.

  “Fuck.” Kennedy’s voice was low and…there was a note. He sounded stricken. Recognition raised the hair on Jason’s neck.

  “What?”

  What the hell could make you—you—look and sound like that? That’s what Jason meant.

  Kennedy didn’t answer. It was doubtful he even heard Jason. His
face looked like stone. No, chalk. Even in this poor light, Jason could see Kennedy was white.

  He heard the pound of footsteps approaching fast. It sounded like an army. He called out, “Watch the floor! It’s giving way in sections.”

  He heard splintering wood and Boxner swearing. “Shit! You could have warned us!”

  More voices and more footsteps. More alarms about the floor. Within a minute or so, Chief Gervase, flanked by his officers and Simpson, entered the shark room and picked his way through the broken branches, making his way toward Jason and Kennedy.

  “What kind of freak would leave her in a place like this?” Officer Dale’s voice floated from the rear of the procession.

  No one answered.

  Gervase stopped a foot or so from Kennedy. “What have we got?”

  Kennedy held up a small brown ball between his index finger and thumb. At first Jason thought Kennedy was showing them a marble. On closer inspection the small sphere looked detailed, carved.

  There was a short silence.

  Gervase said thickly, “The same kind of freak as before.”

  * * * * *

  “So we’re looking at a copycat,” Jason said.

  He and Kennedy were back in their makeshift command center with the door closed. They had returned to town ahead of Gervase and most of his team while the crime scene was being processed—a slow and painstaking operation given the general inaccessibility of that remote location.

  Arriving back at the Kingsfield police station, Kennedy had requested all the case files including autopsy reports and crime scene photos from the original Huntsman investigation.