Mermaid

by Tom Lowe

  “Home. I grabbed a pizza on my way home from work.”

  “Can anyone corroborate that?”

  “Yeah, my parents were there.”

  “Okay, let’s get a little more precise. Where were you after midnight … after your parents went to bed? Did you ride over to Michelle’s for a talk?”

  “No. I watched Netflix.”

  “Sort of home alone, right?”

  “Yeah. I didn’t go anywhere.”

  “Did you call Michelle?”

  “A couple of times. She didn’t pick up.”

  Grant paused and wrote in his notebook. “How would you describe your relationship with Michelle?”

  Harris interrupted. “That’s a purely subjective comment or response to a biased question. Craig, you don’t have to answer that.”

  He shrugged. “It’s okay.” He looked at Grant. “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I asked. You were the former boyfriend. That would seem to me and Detective Lawson that your relationship had soured … gone south. Do you have a different opinion?”

  Blake leaned forward, his elbows on the table, interlocking his fingers together, a slight smile working on the right corner on his mouth. “Just like a lot of couples, we had our good and bad times.”

  “Shall we assume you had more of the bad times, hence the breakup.”

  “Who told you we’d called it quits?”

  “Did you? Or were you still together … as a couple?”

  “She wanted me to go to counseling. I told her I’d go, but I wanted it to be couple’s counseling, do what was needed to work things out. Michelle wasn’t the perfect angel either, okay?”

  “Was Michelle receptive to couple’s therapy?”

  “She wasn’t completely closed to the idea.”

  Grant jotted in his notebook. “But I gather she wasn’t too keen on it either, correct?”

  “We were trying to work through some stuff.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Sure, you do, or you wouldn’t have mentioned it.”

  Harris said, “My client is volunteering to answer your questions. We won’t tolerate badgering.”

  Grant leaned closer. “I will rephrase the question. Why do you think she originally asked you to go to counseling? What wasn’t working, Craig?”

  “Sometimes I have a short fuse. Michelle wanted me to work through what she called my anger problems.”

  “Did you have an issue with that?”

  “No, not really.”

  Lawson asked, “What lights your short fuse, Craig? Why the anger?”

  “That was only a small part of our relationship. Every couple fights. Most days, we got along good.”

  Grant said, “You mean as long as she did what you told her to do, right?”

  “Wrong! I’m not some kind of control freak, okay? You have the wrong picture of me.”

  “Then paint us a better one.”

  “For the most part, I’m an easy goin’ guy. My philosophy is to live and let live.”

  “What’s not included in the part of the ‘most part’? What part turns you into a jealous boyfriend? Is it when you checked Michelle’s text messages when she wasn’t looking?”

  “Detective,” Harris said. “That’s out of line.”

  “No, it’s not out of line if you want us to remove your client as a suspect.” Grant paused and eyed Blake. “Maybe you get agitated when she doesn’t return your phone calls. That’s understandable. Maybe she’s just flat out not into you anymore, Craig. She might have had eyes for somebody else. Is that when jealousy bubbles up from your skin and turns you into something you fight hard not to be … a possessive man?”

  Blake looked away, his carotid artery pulsing on the side of his neck.

  Grant leaned back, put his pen down. “Look, Craig … stuff happens. Sometimes guys can get pissed. It happens in all relationships. My wife can get under my skin, but that’s because I love her, and she knows me like no one else. Relationships are often difficult. Normal guys like you get upset, and they do things they wouldn’t ordinarily ever do. Michelle was up for a part in that movie. The casting director let her borrow the mermaid tail to practice for the role. Was that what sent you over the edge? Some good-looking Hollywood-type comes in here and steals your girl?”

  “No! That’s enough of this crap. I’m not answering anything else.” He looked at his attorney.

  Grant lowered his voice. “Just one more question … did you kill Michelle Martin?”

  “Hell no! You don’t kill somebody you love.”

  “You’re right. I don’t. But how about you?”

  “I gave you my answer.”

  Harris said, “That’s enough. We’ll call it a day unless you have something else.”

  Lawson sat straighter. “Some people kill others for what they perceive as love … when the fact of the matter is, they’re incapable of love. But what they are capable of doing is owning things. These things become possessions, and when one of those possessions is lost, stolen, or walks away … the guy who had a leash attached to it wants that thing back. Michelle walked away, and you’d do anything to get her back.”

  Blake folded his arms across his chest, licked his dry lips. “Why the hell do you guys keep asking the same thing in different ways? I told you that I didn’t kill Michelle.”

  Grant nodded. “Part of what we do is eliminate suspects. It’s the job. If you cared about Michelle, you should be one of the first to appreciate that. We have to drill down and see what we find, and we do that with the aid of evidence.”

  “You have no evidence against me.”

  Grant smiled. “That’s because we haven’t looked for it.” He reached inside the pocket of his sportscoat and pulled out a folded paper. He unfolded it and slid the paper toward Blake and his attorney. “This is a search warrant. We’ll impound your car for a day to search it. And we’ll go back to your home … maybe see what’s in your room.”

  “You won’t find anything because I’m not the killer.”

  “Then you have nothing to worry about, right? Also, we need a DNA sample. Detective Lawson will get that. And we’ll need to take fingerprint and hand impressions.”

  “What do you mean … hand impressions?”

  “To see if it matches something we found on your former girlfriend’s body.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Dave leaned forward, picking up a Smithsonian Magazine off his coffee table, and asked, “What Florida town has more mermaids than it has residents?”

  “Gotta be Key West,” Nick said, grinning. “It’s part of the green flash at sunset. Now you see ‘em … now you don’t.”

  “Sorry, Nick. That’s not accurate.”

  “What is this, a game show?”

  I laughed and said, “Maybe it’s somewhere off the Florida coast … near Atlantis.”

  Wynona shook her head. “I’d bet it’s Weeki Wachee.”

  “And you’d be right,” Dave said, glancing at the magazine cover and looking up at us, a twinkle in his deep eyes. “There have been many magazine and television stories about Weeki Wachee through the years. There’s one in this issue that I read recently. The population of the town is less than a dozen full-time residents, while they have some thirty-five mermaids on the payroll. It used to be called a ‘roadside attraction,’ started in 1948, before the theme parks were built and even before the wacky, tacky museums in Florida of the 1960s. ABC television network bought Weeki Wachee in the sixties and gave the place greater exposure. The state of Florida owns it now and operates it as a park, continuing the tradition of the live mermaid show.”

  “I’ve never been there,” Nick said.

  “It’s unique to Florida … as have been alleged mermaid sightings off our long coastline, from the Keys to the beaches of the Florida Panhandle. Spanish conquistadors reported the first mermaid sightings when the sailors and their galleons came to Florida. I suppose it’s only fi
tting that Disney World has a mermaid attraction adapted from the movie, it’s sort of the legend and lore of the state.”

  Wynona said, “The Seminole people have been here a long time. I can’t recall any of the elders ever mentioning anything about seeing mermaids.”

  Dave nodded. “Indeed. The Seminole, for the most part, stayed inland. They didn’t build seafaring canoes. No reason to have done so. Thus, their opportunities to have observed mermaids were minimized.”

  Wynona laughed and folded her arms. “Dave, with your background in the analytics of evidence in covert intelligence gathering—a man with no illusions, I can’t imagine that you’d give credence to the possibility of mermaids.”

  “I believe in the limitless of the human imagination. That doesn’t necessarily mean I believe in fire-breathing dragons, monsters, or mermaids. I just enjoy the myth. It’s part of the handed-down culture of the human tribe.” He sipped his coffee.

  Nick used his left thumb to wipe a drop of condensation off his bottle of beer. “One of the reasons I never wanted to watch the pretend mermaids at Weeki Wachee is ‘cause I’ve seen my own mermaid at sea … the real deal. Anything less than that wouldn’t cut the Greek mustard.”

  Max tilted her head. Dave chuckled. “Well, the ancient Greek sailors were some of the first, if not the very first to have allegedly observed mermaids at sea. Jason and the men aboard Argos, as the myth goes, dealt with them. And, we’re not talking about the sweet image of the Little Mermaid.”

  Nick took a pull from his beer and said, “You got that right. Fellas like Homer wrote about mermaids … they called ‘em Sirens back in the day, and they played hell with Jason and his crew. I know my Greek history for two reasons … I’m Greek, and I’m a sailor.”

  Wynona smiled. “Nick, did you see a mermaid on one of your fishing trips?”

  He pointed toward Dave’s Starbucks cup. “That girl on Dave’s cup looks a little like the mermaid I saw. I normally don’t talk about stuff I come across at sea. Like the time, I was two hundred miles out in the Atlantic, a little bird landed on top of my wheelhouse. It sat there for a few hours before coming down and sipping some fresh water. I hand-fed it crackers, nuts, and bread. Told the lil’ guy … you stay as long as you want to. He hopped up on my hand, jumped to my shoulder and then flew to the top of my head. I guess my hair musta been like a bird’s nest.”

  Dave lifted up his coffee mug and asked, “Did you see the mermaid the same day?”

  “No, wasn’t even the same trip. I saw her in 2014. I was fishin’ out of Bimini. Left Alice Town an hour earlier. It wasn’t dawn yet. I know some nice fishin’ spots north of Bimini in all those lil’ no-name islands. But you got to be damn careful not to run aground or smash into a reef. The sun was just wakin’ up in the east. Sky filled with pinks and yellows. I looked to the starboard side of St. Michael and saw somethin’ move on one of the rocks. At first, I thought it was a seal or sea lion because I could see the tail hangin’ over the side. I took a sip of coffee and looked again. I almost spit the coffee through my nose. Right as the sun came up, it cast her in a dark silhouette. But I could tell it was a mermaid—I got an eye for women, and she was lookin’ toward my boat. I grabbed my binoculars and ran from the wheelhouse to the rail for a better look. Before I could get the binoculars up to my eyes, she’s slipped right into the sea. Gone, baby, gone!”

  Everyone laughed, and I said, “Be honest, Nick. You’d just left Alice Town. I know one of your favorite bars in the world is there. Did you have too much rum or ouzo that night?”

  Nick grinned. “I won’t lie. I had some. But no amount of rum or a hangover will make me see a mermaid. I figured the only way she allowed me to see her for a few seconds is due to the way St. Michael is built, a lot like the Greek fishing boats centuries ago. There’s not another boat in this marina like her. I think the mermaid wasn’t afraid because she knew a Greek captain had to be aboard. I bet one of her ancestors was swimmin’ the Aegean Sea back when the Argos set sail. It’s in her blood, you know.”

  Wynona smiled, “That’s quite a story. But since more than seventy percent of the Earth’s surface is covered in water, who knows what lurks beneath the deep blue seas.”

  Dave glanced at the picture of his daughter for a moment, eyes reflective. He looked back at us. “My daughter and granddaughter, both fell under the spell of The Little Mermaid story—the original version written in the mid 1800s. So, in view of the apparent murder on the beach of a young woman in a mermaid costume, let’s consider the legend and myth of mermaids. Some of the first fables depicted mermaids as beautiful creatures with sinister personalities. They were blamed for luring sailors into treacherous waters where their ships would wreck, and the mermaids would do nothing to rescue survivors. Some renaissance painters portrayed mermaids as the ultimate seductresses, with the upper bodies of striking women, fish tails instead of legs, long flowing hair and exquisite faces. And then we fast forward to around the middle of the 1800s after Hans Christian Anderson wrote The Little Mermaid—not to be confused with Disney’s adaptation of the theme.”

  “How were they different?” Nick asked.

  Dave chuckled. “I’m not a movie critic or literary reviewer but, for what it’s worth, here’s my take. Both stories, of course, involve the central character making hard choices. In the story written by Anderson, the Little Mermaid traded her voice for legs, but learning to walk proved painful. In both stories, the mermaid desires human love—the love of the prince. In the Anderson version, the mermaid chose not to have to kill the prince to save herself. Thus, we see the ultimate love played out in self-sacrifice. In the Disney version, the Little Mermaid, trades some of her individuality as a young woman to become human and marry the prince. But she is portrayed to live happily ever after, of course.”

  I asked, “Okay, what’s the spoiler in your synopsis on mermaids and a possible connection to the murder on the beach?”

  “It’s purely a hypothesis.” Dave shifted his eyes toward Wynona. “I’m sure the BSU at the FBI could give us a much better psychological correlation between mankind’s love affair for mermaids and the girl’s death than I can offer. But, based on what’s been revealed thus far in the news stories, I’d suggest the killer has an obsession with mermaids or the overall theme of mermaids in his sick mind, gorgeous sea nymphs to have at his beck and call. Maybe it’s a fantasy he’s had most of his life. If the body was taken there … to the beach, and if its appearance was staged, he may harbor a degree of reverence—not remorse, because he’s incapable of that. But deep awe or fiendish admiration might definitely be at play here. If the attack and killing was sexual in nature, he’s playing out his ultimate fantasy … to have sex with a half woman and half fish … a mermaid.”

  Wynona nodded. “Since he left the body on a remote stretch of beach, do you think the perp is from around here?”

  “Possibly, but that’s not a given. He may have chosen the location because the victim lived nearby, and it was a convenient site to leave the body. But I believe the surf and sea are all playing into the theme of the mermaid myth and the death of the girl. That, I think, is the overriding factor in where the body was found.” Dave looked at me. “What do you think, Sean. You’ve investigated your share of homicides … do you believe this one might have a staged theme to it … a criminal mind that has kept a dark fantasy locked away, and when the time and circumstances were right, the sinister genie made it out of the dark bottle?”

  “I don’t put a lot of stock in coincidences as the definition applies to murder. When I was a detective, I was always searching for the man behind the curtain, the perp pulling the strings or pressing the buttons. My domino theory is that, the last one to fall, which is the murdered victim, begins with the first one pushed—pushed by the killer or someone who hired the killer. You typically have to work backwards. There could be, and often there is, a lot of extenuating circumstances along the way. But those, added up, are usually part of the sum total of how
and why a person was killed. Most often, it had to do with jealousy, sex, greed or retribution. There is, however, one exception.”

  “What’s that?” Nick asked.

  “The serial killer who didn’t know his victims beyond the time it took to stalk and kill them. For these perps, it was about power, dominance, and instilling the worst fear in their victims.”

  Dave asked, “Do you think that’s at play with the murder on the beach?”

  “Most likely. And I keep thinking about the TV news clip we saw, specifically the interview with the casting director.”

  “What about it?” Wynona asked.

  “Going back to my suggestion that there are no coincidences in murder. The fact that a big budget, Hollywood movie, Atlantis, is here to film scenes involving mermaids, I believe it isn’t coincidental.”

  “Please, elaborate,” Dave said.

  “It may be a very thin line, but I’m thinking that somehow and, in some way, the murder of Michelle Martin is connected to the movie. Maybe it’s someone with the production, someone who wants to be with it, or someone who’s dark interest in the mermaid illusion is being stirred by all of the publicity the movie is getting in the news media. Something is creating a cause—the impulse to kill.”

  Dave pushed his glasses back on his head. “I read where more than a hundred extras came out the first day of auditions, most of them were girls.”

  “And, any one of them could be the next possible victim.”

  “That makes my skin crawl,” Wynona said.

  Dave squinted, watching a 62-foot Bertram, sports-fishing yacht back away from its slip at M dock. He looked at me. “You don’t think he’s done yet … do you, Sean?”

  “No, I don’t.

  “And that’s why you spoke with Savannah Nelson and her father, Rex?”

  “Yes.”

  Dave blew out a breath and placed his bifocals toward the end of his nose. He looked at the magazine cover and then lifted his eyes to me. “I enjoy the fiction, the myth of the mermaid in books and cinema. What I hate is when an evil person wants to rewrite the ending to lives of young women and take the mermaid fable to the darkest recesses of a criminal mind.”