Mermaid

by Tom Lowe

  Wynona smiled. “So, I assume that’s where she got Savannah.”

  “Not from the sea. Savannah said her mom wanted to name her Avalon. But her dad didn’t care for it. So, they settled for Savannah. The city where she apparently was conceived. Avalon is her middle name.” I smiled and took a bite of my salad.

  “Well, you know a lot about the family. How’d her mother die?”

  “It started as breast cancer and spread throughout most of her body.”

  Wynona said nothing for a long moment, a limpkin crying out again, the breeze bringing the fragrance of blooming jasmine across the porch. “It’s sad to hear Savannah lost her mother when she was so young. It must have been hard for her. I had a close friend who also had breast cancer. Lori thought she’d beaten it because her tests for the first few years after treatment were negative. Then she began getting pains in her back, as if her spine had slipped a disc or something. Bone scans revealed the cancer had spread to another area. After a more rigorous round of treatments, she’s beat it again and has been cancer free now for seven years. She’s one of the lucky ones who’s always telling women to get regular check-ups and praises the advances of medical research for the cures that are available today. She affectionately harps on me for going to the doctor only when I get really sick.”

  “I’m guilty of that, too. And I’m glad your friend beat it. It’s good to hear the positive stories, which we’re hearing about more and more these days.”

  Wynona sipped her tea. I handed Max a small piece of warm French bread and said, “The reason I think that Savannah Nelson may be in danger is what we learned in the news story about the girl’s death. If her body was above the mean high tide line, she certainly wasn’t washed ashore from the surf. Someone placed her there. And, if her hair was fanned out around her head, the perp did that. He was putting the body on morbid display. Posing it. And there’s a good probability that he was the one who dressed her in the mermaid tail costume. Most likely, there is some sick fantasy at play.”

  “When I was with the FBI, the forensic psychological profiling was becoming an even better refined science in the study and tracking of the criminally insane. It’s amazing how accurate it can be. When I was in my fifth year with the Bureau, we were searching for a serial killer in New Orleans. The perp was stalking middle-aged men who were gay. He was what the Bureau called a mission killer, someone who is incapable of feeling remorse for his actions. He was a psychopath on a mission to rid the world of people he determined as undesirable. This particular killer, mutilated the victim’s bodies, putting them on display, for a macabre effect when the victims were found. An extraordinary thing happened to me during the course of that case.” Wynona sat back in her chair.

  “What was that?”

  “I had some kind of personal revelation or epiphany. I wasn’t a naïve FBI agent, of course. I’d seen and investigated my share of horror … but, as we were tracking down this perp, following his gruesome trail, for the first time in my life, I moved away from the perception that monsters were in movies and books, somehow imaginary or on the peripheral. I realized the depth of pure evil and that monsters were real in the form of people—people who could look as innocent as a scout leader, a priest, or sweet ol’ Uncle Bill.”

  “Sometimes it’s hard to spot monsters because psychopaths can blend in well. But they can be tracked back to their lair.”

  Wynona nodded, cutting a piece of avocado in her salad bowl. “When I was trying to save the life of a sixteen-year-old girl from the cold hands of a butcher—that monster, who was her biological father and her killer, my only regret is that I ran out of bullets. The FBI shrink said I was harboring recessed anger.” Wynona pushed back in her chair, face slightly flushed. “I try not to go there, Sean, but sometimes … like when I see a dead girl’s body in a mermaid costume … the old ghosts seem to reappear.”

  “It’s a natural reaction to the unnatural—the aberrant, the deliberate and calculated deaths some in mankind inflict on their fellow human beings. In the animal kingdom, murder is unique only to the human species. Mermaids don’t wash ashore on the beach because they don’t exist, but psychopaths do. And that’s no illusion.”

  Wynona nodded. “You mentioned tracking these monsters to their lairs. If the girl on the beach was killed and the perp dumped her body there, or if he drowned her in the water, I’d think, with all that sand, there might be tracks of some sort unless the sand is covered with footprints from beachgoers or the high tide wiped them out. Maybe the mermaid tail can be tracked to point-of-purchase.”

  “Maybe. With no visible signs of trauma on the body, I’d bet the perp did everything he could to leave no traces. Too often that happens in murders where the victim was left on display for someone to find.”

  Wynona shook her head. “Listen to us … we’re supposed to be having a relaxing lunch on the porch, but we’re talking about a possible murder as if we’re both in the detective’s room discussing a case.” She smiled, using her fork to pierce a slice of tomato.

  I said nothing, shifting my eyes from Wynona to the river, two snowy egrets stalking the shallows under the moss-draped limbs of a cypress tree, the surface of the water was still and murky.

  “What are you thinking, Sean?”

  I looked at Wynona. “I’m thinking that I should speak with Savannah’s dad, Rex Nelson.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of the man Savannah mentioned … the guy watching her. He might have been the killer. If so, and if he thinks Savannah can ID him … she’s definitely in danger.”

  “But why let her see him … even from a distance while she’s riding waves?”

  “Because sometimes monsters can blend in well, especially with a storm on the horizon, but some will allow you to see enough of their sinister shape to let you know they exist … and they’re watching you. Maybe that’s one of the ways he gets an adrenaline rush. But, he also may have been trying to gauge if she noticed him further up the beach or coming from that direction, and his staring at her caught her attention.”

  EIGHT

  Kristen Morgan didn’t feel like diving tonight. Although the sharks in the aquarium weren’t large or dangerous, she knew they could smell the slightest traces of blood in the water. Kristen, a statuesque brunette with sea green eyes, felt like she might start her period at any time, and the last thing she wanted was some curious shark following her around the pool during her shift as a mermaid. She sat in the backstage prep room with six other young women, fresh fruit and bottles of water on a table, framed photos of former mermaids on the walls. The girls in the room were all part of the mermaid shows at one of the most opulent restaurant bars in Miami Beach—Odyssey.

  Odyssey was a destination for many people visiting Miami and South Beach. It was touted as a restaurant-bar and as an aquatic theme park, attracting locals and tourists as well. Closed on Mondays, the other six nights a week Odyssey was open to people willing to risk the possibility of standing in line behind the velvet ropes if they weren’t with the early crowd.

  The bar was a hybrid—a lavish restaurant and upscale bar, lots of maritime décor on the walls and ceiling. Behind the bar was an authentic cannon from the remains of a Spanish galleon found in the water nine miles off Miami Beach. There also were softly lit paintings of Greek and Viking ships, and a larger-than-life bronze statue of a powerfully built bearded man holding the three-pronged trident—a fishing spear. The statue stood on an elevated, white marble slab in the center of the large room, a brass plate at the foot of the statue read Poseidon.

  “Hey, it’s Aquaman,” said a twenty-something blonde woman in a short, black leather dress walking by the statue with her muscular boyfriend in tow. “I feel like tequila tonight,” she said leading him around customers at tables, up to the long bar. “Oh, look over there. That’s where the mermaids appear. I always wanted to be a mermaid.”

  The main attraction in Odyssey was the celebrated mermaid show. All along one wall and be
hind the bar were dozens of massive horizontal panes of glass, giving diners a view into the 500,000-gallon saltwater aquarium filled with vibrant fish, small sharks, stingrays, and artificial coral that rivaled the real thing in color and appearance. But it was the mermaids that garnered the most attention.

  Some of the most beautiful women in South Florida, many of them college students, applied for the high-paying jobs as mermaids. Before becoming part of the show, they would receive three days of dive training in a separate, closed-off tank. The women were taught how to swim wearing a lifelike mermaid tail, how to hold their breaths and smile underwater at the same time. They had access to air hoses that were mingled into the multihued, artificial coral. The constant streams of bubbles made the mouthpieces to the air hoses easy to find, set in the simulated coral, should any of the mermaids need air before she had to resurface.

  Some of the girls could hold their breaths for almost two minutes. Others usually reached for air after ninety seconds or so. Kristen Morgan, who grew up in South Florida and spent a lot of time in the family swimming pool with her younger brother, learned how to hold her breath for close to three minutes. The fact that she never smoked and participated in triathlons, added to her athletic ability.

  With a female assistant, Kristen carried her mermaid tail to the edge of the saltwater aquarium and sat with her feet in the water to help slip the tail over her legs and up to her waist, two inches below her navel. She and five other girls, all dressed in mermaid tails of different colors—colors that matched their bikini tops, were about to enter the mammoth aquarium and swim ten feet down to the windows looking into Odyssey.

  After assistants helped them into the costumes, the nightly producer, a woman in her forties, tanned face and arms, dressed in white jeans and a dark blue shirt said, “Okay, girls. It’s show time for the first shift. And that’s you.” Like a coach before a game, she looked at her players, voice filled with positive comments. “We have a capacity crowd eating and drinking in Odyssey. The food and drink are great but remember this … it’s you that they’ve come to see. No other bar or restaurant in the nation, including Vegas, does what we do. The Odyssey mermaid show is the best of the best. So, as you dive in … give them your best.” She clapped her hands once. “Hit the water, ladies.”

  At the same time, in six different areas of the pool, the women slipped into the water, took deep breaths, turning upside down, mermaid tails in the air like that from a pod of dolphins diving. The women kicked their tails in unison, quickly descending into the depths of the aquarium.

  The lights dimmed in Odyssey and orchestral music came out of hidden speakers. Lights inside the aquarium faded up and the mermaids appeared like a dream. “Oh, look,” said a middle-aged woman at one of the tables with her husband. “The mermaids are now among us.”

  Most of the heads in the restaurant turned at the same time, watching in hushed tones as the beautiful women, all with long hair and shapely bodies, swam like fantasies behind the thick glass. The mermaids moved in sync with the music, as if they were underwater ballerinas, tails on point, then gently swishing from one side to the next, turning full circles. Smiling. Long hair fanning out like liquid silk around their heads, the music building. Schools of colorful fish swam by the windows.

  Kristen, the best swimmer in the group, was positioned in the center window. She smiled underwater and moved so well she appeared to be a real mermaid, especially after diners had a drink or two. She swayed her tail from side to side in a mesmerizing motion that had the realistic moves of a fish, slowly turning, her arms moving in a hula dancer’s pirouette. Because the lights in Odyssey were dimmed, it was difficult for Kristen and the other mermaids to see deep into the restaurant—almost like actors on a Broadway stage, only a few people in the front rows could be seen at certain times during the play.

  For Kristen, studying theater at the University of Miami, this was an underwater stage, and she was acting the part of a mermaid. She looked through the large window, a porthole into the depth of Odyssey and its soft lights, shadows and silhouettes of the audience. She was almost ninety seconds into her dive. Kristen knew that she could hold her breath for at least another minute, more if she kept her swimming movements to a minimum, not increasing her heartrate, burning energy and air.

  She could see a few people at tables closer to the window, everyone smiling. Some pointing to her and the other mermaids. One man appeared not to be smiling. He sat at a table alone. Kristen couldn’t see the details of his face well, but she could see that he was staring at her. His head didn’t turn to watch the other performers. Only her. Even from behind the glass, on the underwater stage, and with a restaurant and bar filled with people, she felt uncomfortable because the man never averted his stare, looking directly at her.

  Kristen’s lungs began the slow burn. She could turn, kick her tail twice, and glide over to the coral behind her where air awaited. The other mermaids had already done it. But she was competitive, holding out until the last few seconds. She smiled, hiding the ache in her lungs, the increased beating of her heart.

  Through the windows, she saw a movement. Something beyond the shuffle of the servers taking food orders, the barmaids carrying drinks on trays, and the guests getting up to find the restrooms.

  The man at the table was gone. At least he was no longer at the table. Kristen made a slow turn around, moving 360 degrees. When she faced the window again, he was back. This time much closer. She still had a hard time seeing the details of his face. It appeared to be a gaunt face. Pasty under the subdued lights and the blueish tint of the aquarium water. But she did see his hand. He placed it against the window, fingers spread. She noticed part of his ring-finger was missing, just below the center knuckle. She reached out and placed her hand opposite his on the window. Even through the thick glass, Kristen could feel something she never felt when people placed their hands on the portholes.

  She felt a chill.

  Not from the glass, but rather from the man’s hand eight inches away. She withdrew, keeping her smile. Her lungs now burning more. She turned and swam ten feet behind her to the coral reef, picking up one of the bubbling air-hoses, slipping the mouthpiece behind her lips and taking a deep breath. She inhaled slowly, releasing the air though her nostrils. Her lungs no longer burned, and her heart rate was subsiding. She turned back to the glass.

  The man was gone. Through the glass, she could barely make out the moist handprint he had left behind. Fingers spread. A section of the ring-finger missing.

  NINE

  I could tell that Wynona was feeling uneasy. It wasn’t in what she said. It was in what she did and didn’t do. She didn’t talk about the loss of our baby anymore or the emotional pain that lingered behind her eyes. She no longer kept the clothes she’d bought for the baby, giving the little dresses and outfits away. Wynona rarely called her mother who lived on the Seminole reservation, preferring not to discuss her past, present, or future, for that matter.

  Sometimes I could hear her moan in her sleep. Not painful moans but rather ones filled with sorrow—the mournful cry of a mother who’d lost a child she already named before its birth. Wynona took long walks by herself, following rough and uneven trails along the river. Walking to “clear her head,” she told me, often rising before dawn, trying not to wake me, putting on her clothes, a brave face, hiking shoes, and slipping quietly out the door. An hour later, I’d greet her with a cup of coffee to share on our dock, letting Wynona reveal what was on her mind when she was ready to talk about it.

  This morning, as the sun smoldered like an orange match behind the cypress tree line, a pale mist rising from the surface of the water, we sat on one of the wooden benches, Max lying on her stomach between us. Wynona sipped her coffee, smiled, and said, “I love it here. When I leave, I’ll take some of it with me. The spirit of this place, the ancient shell mound, the river and the quiet forests … it all calls to you and stays with you.”

  I said nothing, the smack of a fish break
ing water near the center of the river, the smell of wet moss and clover on the river’s edge. I looked at Wynona, searching for that light I always saw in her eyes. Like the clouds blocking sunlight from the surface of the river, the light in her eyes had reduced as if someone had used a dimmer switch to lower the source of energy. I said, “There is no reason to take away the spirit of this place when you can keep making memories right here. Excluding death, there’s no expiration date stamped on what we’re doing together, Wynona. Why are you talking about leaving?” Max looked up at me, and then angled her head at Wynona.

  A blue heron stalked the shallows beneath a cluster of cypress trees near the river’s edge, a foot of dark water around the bird’s spindly legs. The heron lifted its head and made a loud screech. Wynona said, “I can’t stay away from my work forever. I’m needed by the department. After my shortened career with the FBI, I felt a need to return to the tribe—to the people living on the rez to try and make a difference.”

  “And you have. You’ve made a positive impact, solved a number of tough cases, and set role model examples for other members of the tribe to follow, young women and men as well. What do you want to do, Wynona? Do you really want to go back to police work?”

  “Doing police investigations, I felt a strong sense of self-worth, of accomplishment, putting a dent into the criminal element. But, too often, it was like whack-a-mole. We’d catch one bad guy and another two would pop up. And then the one we caught and convicted received a light sentence and soon was back on the streets.” She paused, rubbed Max behind her ears and looked across the river at the massive strands of old cypress in the Ocala National Forest. “You asked me what I want to do. That problem or challenge is I have no idea, Sean. As much as I love my career, as fulfilling and as frustrating as the job can be, I always thought, at the end of the day, I made a positive difference. Now, I’m not so sure how much of an impact I’ve made. I am sure, though, that I’m feeling hollow inside. And it’s a feeling that’s beyond the loss of our baby. It’s a weird feeling or situation that I’m not quite sure how to handle.”