The Mermaid and the Murders

by Rachel Graves

  “It’s not what I do. It’s not what you do. Most of the people in this town don’t kill others.”

  I chewed on my lower lip.

  “You disagree?”

  “How are we defining this town? Just the land based parts of Playa Linda? Because my pod, my mermaid family—they kill men all the time.”

  “We need to figure out who the real killer is so you don’t end up in jail. Could it be a mermaid?”

  “We don’t usually hunt women.”

  “But they could?”

  “Sure. But the bodies weren’t cut with a tail. They were bitten.”

  “And mermaids don’t bite.”

  He said it like a fact, but I couldn’t let him believe it was true. “We do.” I tried to think of how to say it nicely, but I couldn’t. “I know this is hard to hear, but we do. We can bite through a lobster’s shell if we want to. The police really weren’t wrong. They don’t know it, but I could’ve killed those girls. If I were hungry enough or angry enough, it wouldn’t have been hard at all. Strange? Sure. Impossible? No.”

  “But you didn’t. It doesn’t matter if their bodies showed up next to your place. No one here killed them.”

  His words rang inside my head. I wasn’t the only person here. He’d forgotten someone: someone who didn’t mind killing and who wouldn’t think twice about leaving bodies behind for the cops to find.

  “What if…” I stopped myself. I couldn’t say it.

  “What?” He looked at me and I wondered if could admit it to him.

  “My mother,” I finally said, feeling disloyal. “All of the bodies were dumped by our house. What if it was Mom?”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe the girls were too close to our house. Maybe she thought they’d seen her. It could have been anything. Most mermaids don’t have a very high opinion of regular people.”

  “But have you ever seen her hurt anyone?”

  “Not another woman,” I said, trying to sound hopeful. It wasn’t much of a leap from her openly admitting to drowning men to her possibly biting women. Except that maybe it was. I didn’t know. But I didn’t trust Mom that well.

  “Heather saw something that probably wasn’t your mom.”

  “Unless Heather was drunk or high.”

  He looked at me in me disbelief.

  “You don’t know Heather. It’s possible.”

  “And the smell?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe that’s something else. Something not involved with the murders, but eating the bodies. It could be a squid, something that’s just feeding. You have to admit, it’s odd that two bodies had bites to the neck and then one of them was bitten all over. Maybe the squid came along after Mom killed them.”

  “I don’t think it’s your mom. You two might not get along, but I really doubt she’d kill girls you know.”

  I sniffed unable to contain my sarcasm. “You think she knows who my friends are?”

  “Maybe not, but I don’t think she’s the monster you’ve always made her out to be.”

  I wanted to hate him for saying that, for taking her side and not mine. But I didn’t because, oddly, what he said made sense. I’d never agreed with Mom, never felt she loved me the way other moms seemed to love their children; but this seemed to be past even her.

  “I wish I could know. Not think, but really know she wasn’t the one.”

  “People don’t do things like this without leaving a trace. Whoever is killing these girls is leaving signs, tracks, something that ties them to the people they’re killing.”

  “So?”

  “So search your mom’s stuff. Check the house. See if you find anything that links her to this crime. Because if you don’t, we could really use her help.”

  “All right. That makes sense, but I want to do it alone.”

  “That makes sense, too.” He pulled me into a hug that ended with a kiss. He made me promise to call him if I found anything that bothered me. I made the promise, but when I started up the stairs to Mom’s bedroom, I knew I wouldn’t keep it.

  ****

  I hesitated when my hand wrapped around the doorknob. I rarely went in Mom’s room. She never let me sleep in bed with her or hang out with her while she got dressed. Mom was private, or maybe aloof. As much as she didn’t really care about the stuff behind the door, because she didn’t really care about anything on dry land, she’d be furious if she knew I went through it. Oh well.

  The bedroom hadn’t changed during my lifetime. The king-sized bed was still the only piece of furniture in the room, barely making a dent in the space. Mom’s room took up the entire third floor, with a wide wraparound porch and views of Mother Ocean from the glass doors. I started out there, checking every spot to see if there was blood or a piece of hair. I’d watched enough TV to know anything I could find would be small, and I didn’t want to miss it.

  The porches were completely clean. It looked like Mom hadn’t even walked out there in weeks.

  Back inside, I checked the bed, the sheets, under the pillows, as if Mom might steal jewelry or clothes. The idea sounded stupid even inside my head, and I began to think that this whole thing was stupid. I might not get along with Mom, but that didn’t make her a murderer. Well, a murderer of women, anyway.

  I stood in front of Mom’s closet, not even sure I should open it. I saw my reflection in the glass doors: a woman, a young one, but a woman now for sure, with long blonde hair and sea green eyes. I looked out of place in Mom’s room, like an intruder. I felt like one, too. But looking at myself reminded me of Heather and the other girls. I always thought of myself as different, separate, but we were the same in a lot of ways too.

  I pulled the closet doors open and started to search. A small collection of fancy clothes hung in front of me, and I checked all the pockets before I pushed them to one side. On the bottom of the closet were shoes in neat pairs, but I didn’t see anything that looked wrong. I finally stood on my tiptoes to check the top shelf. Clear boxes with more shoes and a few winter coats, but nothing odd until I noticed one pulled farther out on the shelf. A small shoebox pushed to the side, standing on the edge as if Mom had tried to hide it.

  I took it down and sat on the floor with it in my lap. Once I opened it I’d have violated Mom’s privacy completely. I might find something I really didn’t want to know about. But I had to open it, and when I did, when I finally lifted that lid, what I saw blew me away.

  The picture in front of me didn’t make sense. I slumped back on the floor and looked at it. There was me, in a bathing suit top, and there was…a man. Probably my father. That much I could comprehend. But there was my mother floating in the water by the boat, tail hanging out for all the world to see; and there were dolphins, lots of them, all around her. Sure, you might see a dolphin or two come by a boat, but five or six? And who was taking the photo?

  On the back, scrawled in an uneven hand, was a caption: “A perfect family portrait!—Edgar”. Mom, Dad, and I were a family. But the dolphins: why were they there?

  I dug through the rest of the box. There were lots of photos of us on our boat, Dolphin’s Folly, and I could see how the towels from one picture aged in another. I was two, then three, then four, five, and then no more photos. And in every photo, every single one, a pod of dolphins surrounded the boat. It reminded me of when I’d brought the first body to the beach, and a dolphin had pulled me home. Why were dolphins there?

  I searched through Mom’s closet, digging into boxes. There wasn’t anything else, just that box, that one pile of photos with all the questions it raised and no answers.

  I was walking downstairs before I realized why, out the door and on to the beach. We lived on Porpoise Point. How many references to dolphins were there in my life that I’d never noticed? Like the stuffed dolphin I’d slept with as a little kid, or the dolphin T-shirt I loved so much in elementary school?

  I stripped off my shirt and shucked off my shorts, stepping into the water naked. I
didn’t stop to think about a bathing suit.

  My tail came quickly. It took me twenty minutes of swimming before I found them: a small pod, but one I recognized, almost the same size as the photos. I swam with them, going in and out of their fast gray bodies. They were fast, but so was I. And I had an advantage: I had gills. The rest of them would need air soon enough.

  When the first one went up, I caught it, wrapping my tail around its back fin and keeping it near the surface. Up close, the dolphin was scary: black eyes with no pupils and a mouth filled with sharp teeth. I stared at it, wishing I could understand from looking at it what the answer was. Dead girls in my ocean, dolphins in my life, and somehow I had to figure it all out.

  In my frustration, my tail tightened and the dolphin clicked at me. I jerked back, only to bump into a second one. Suddenly, they were all around me, and they stayed that way, nudging me and pushing me on to a sand bar. I couldn’t stand, not with my tail, but they all stopped there and waited in a few feet of water, looking fierce in the moonlight.

  Then one of them began to change.

  It almost molted, smooth skin rippling and shifting, stretching until I was sure it would tear. The process took forever, but eventually a woman sat on the sand bar in front of me, breathing hard. She was naked, with steel gray hair that barely covered her skull.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “It takes a bit.” She tried to smile but couldn’t stop breathing long enough to do it properly. Behind her, I saw another one shift: this time, a man. He sat behind her, and put his arm around her chest. Looking at them, I guessed they were older. I didn’t know how long dolphins lived, but if they were people, I’d say they were close to sixty.

  “Who are you?”

  The man looked surprised and the woman blinked rapidly.

  “You should tell her, Serena.” He nodded like this was some huge concession.

  It took her another minute to catch her breath. “Well, honey, I’m your grandmother, Serena. This is your grandfather, Dylan.”

  I shook my head. “My grandmother lives by a reef not far from here. My grandfather is dead.”

  “We’re your father’s parents.”

  My jaw dropped and I looked at them. It clicked inside my head, the perfect family portrait. “My dad was a…what are you?”

  “Were-dolphins, if you like, or dolphin shifters. The name doesn’t matter much. We’re dolphins first though, with two legs when we have to have them.” This from the man, from my grandfather I guess, Dylan.

  “I thought my dad’s parents didn’t want anything to do with me.” I barely whispered the words. Why would Mom lie to me?

  “I wouldn’t say that’s the truth,” Dylan responded.

  “Well, I would,” Serena corrected him. “Truth be told, we didn’t approve of your father’s last wish: that you’d be educated and grow up on dry land. Your mother agreed to it, and we didn’t. We always hoped you’d come stay with us, and we liked seeing you out here, but we weren’t going to take part in some crazy idea to raise you out there.”

  “Why did Dad care about me living on dry land so much?”

  Serena looked at Dylan, then he looked down.

  “Why?”

  “Not that long ago, there was a council.” Serena paused. “Every group in the ocean sent a representative. That’s how Noah fell in with the mermaids.”

  “Never approved of that,” Dylan put in.

  Serena shushed him. “Your father wanted you to be on that council, and he wanted the council to work with the dry-landers.”

  “He wanted me to…to be some sort of go between?”

  “Exactly. You would grow up with them and understand them and help keep the peace.” Serena seemed satisfied with that idea, but I still had questions.

  “So why aren’t I then? When’s the next council meeting?” I half-laughed. The idea that my father, my dead, never-in-my-life father had these plans for me—it was ludicrous. I couldn’t wait to share the joke with Sam.

  “There is no council,” Dylan’s voice sounded angry. “Not anymore.”

  “What happened?”

  “It got out of hand. Humans beat up some of the other members; the members went after them. Some died. After that no one trusted each other and the council disbanded.”

  “Humans knew?” I’d spent my whole life hiding, how could they know?

  “Some of them. They don’t like to accept it and we don’t like to advertise it, but some of them can be trusted.”

  “Wow. In Playa Linda.” The idea blew my mind.

  “Playa Linda? This is Salvaje Playa. The ones on land might have changed the name and told some lies, but this will always be Salvaje Playa.” Dylan sounded gruff almost angry. Part of my mind translated the name: savage beach and I realized he fit the description, savage. I wondered how he’d gotten along with his son, my father.

  “I thought you might be ready to stay with us,” Serena offered.

  “I…I’m not sure. I found some family photos and I—” I what? I wanted answers? I’d stormed out of the house? Not a good thing to tell them. “Who took the photos?”

  “A council friend of your parents’.”

  “Did you know his name? Or anything about him?”

  They both shook their heads.

  “And the bodies, the one that I found, and the others…what about them?”

  “What about them?” Dylan demanded.

  “It’s not up to us to judge,” Serena soothed.

  “But…someone is killing people!”

  “Dry-landers, sweetie. Not our kind.”

  “But we’re all people.”

  Dylan snorted, clearly not impressed. “That’s what the council thought, too. Now where are they? No, we’ll stay right here and mind our own pod.” He gave Serena a look, then turned back toward me. “We should go. We’ll stay close in case you need us.”

  I had a thousand questions, but I didn’t get to ask them. Serena and Dylan didn’t wait for me. They dove off the sand bar and into the deep water. I thought about swimming after them, even though it seemed they didn’t want me to. Not unless I was going to stick around for a good long time, anyway. I swam home alone, with a few answers and a lot more questions.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I was determined to find out more about the council. I went through everything I could find in Mom’s room. It was slow going. I moved hampered by guilt and a thousand thoughts about all the things I’d learned. Dolphin shifters existed. My dad was one. I tried to force myself to think about other things, about the council but I kept coming back to the vastness of Mother Ocean and the creatures that must live with Her.

  Sure, I’d spent a ton of time in the water as a kid, but I’d never seen a salt golem or a dolphin shifter. Why not? What else was out there? Were mermaids isolationists who never wanted to know the other groups? If that was true, why was Mom on the council? And if the dolphin shifters were all against the idea the way Dylan was, why was my dad on the council? What was the point of the council? How many dry-landers knew about it? Could one of them be the killer? One of them or one of us? Someone close to me?

  As I went through Mom’s dresser drawers a second time, I realized how impossible it would be for her to be the killer. She wasn’t on land enough; like she wasn’t home enough to wear most of these clothes or keep a diary. Mom probably felt exactly like Serena and Dylan did—what happened to humans wasn’t her concern. I’d sung beside my mother at Mara’s funeral, but she hadn’t mentioned it to me since. Granted, we hadn’t talked a lot since then, but she hadn’t seemed concerned about justice or retribution. Maybe those weren’t mermaid ideals. I knew there was no mermaid jail, no court system. A pod might kick someone out, leaving her to hunt and live alone, but shunning seemed to be the worst thing anyone could imagine.

  I took one last look around the room, making sure I’d put everything back in the right place. Satisfied, I clicked off the light and headed down to the desk we kept on the firs
t floor. Wooden and not too big, the old roll-top desk was where I wrote out parental excuse notes when I needed them. Mom barely used the space and I’d perfected her signature back in junior high. Still, I never went through the desk drawers, never searched through the file folders.

  The first folders I came across were all bank records, for Mom’s account, an old business account labeled Neptune’s, and deposit slips from the few art galleries that actually sold Mom’s photos. I dug around farther into the back, going into folders that probably would never help: the property taxes, the electric bills. As I unfolded a map of Playa Linda, a business card dropped out. The card came from Edgar Fischer and listed Ocean’s Oeuvre Gallery on Fifth Street. I turned the card over trying to guess its age. I knew Fifth Street, but I’d never seen any galleries. I fired up my computer and confirmed it. But on King Street, in the middle of our main tourist district, I found Maritime Masterpieces. The two names weren’t close, but the meanings were almost exactly the same. I tapped the card on my keyboard, wondering if Edgar Fischer was the same Edgar who had taken our picture. As soon as I could, I intended to find out.

  ****

  When the text messages woke me up, I felt grateful. Sleep brought me a disjointed jumble of images and emotions. All I wanted to do was crawl under the covers and not think about the puzzle of my Mother, Edgar, the dolphins, and the deaths. Instead, I’d gotten into bed and thought about it until I finally fell asleep, only to dream about it. Getting woken up was the best thing that happened to me all night.

  I scrolled through my messages, noting the time on my phone. Ryan’s funeral was in two hours.

  I dialed Ashley first. She picked up on the third ring.

  “What?”

  I said, “Good morning to you too. I know I skipped school yesterday, but what’s the deal with the funeral?”

  Ashley took a second, and I coughed to prompt her.

  “Sorry. I had a weird night. Um, okay, the funeral. I’m driving. I’ll pick you up around 9:30.”

  It didn’t sound like I had a choice, so I didn’t say anything. Ashley didn’t notice.