Marriage & the Mermaid (Hapless Heroes)

by Cusack, Louise

  She was extraordinarily peaceful in repose, harmless even, with her shoulders hunched and her purple fingers biting into the white damask of the pillow. Her legs were drawn up and Baz averted his gaze from what he would have ogled over yesterday. Only then did he realize he’d forgotten to retrieve the shorts and tee shirt from the clothes dryer. He’d have to go back for them. But first he wanted her up and eating or she’d never sleep tonight.

  “Venus. Venus. Wake up, honey.”

  “Hmmm?” She rolled onto her back and the pillow came with her, sliding across her stomach onto the bed. Her breasts jiggled and then settled, eyelids fluttered but refused to stay open. “Food?” she murmured.

  Baz couldn’t help himself. He grinned. “Yes, food.” Nice to know his place in her world. “I knew you’d be hungry.”

  “Always hungry,” she said, still struggling with her eyelids.

  “You made a mess,” he told her.

  Venus’s eyes came open at that, but they were heavy, as if she’d been inside a deep sleep instead of a nap. The near–drowning and her subsequent exercise had obviously taken a toll. She tilted her head to the side to focus on him but it took her eyes a couple of seconds to track.

  “The bee–troot,” she said at last, and frowned so earnestly that he wanted to let her off the hook. “The magazine said to mix it with hot water and …” Her frown deepened. “I wanted cloths.”

  “You have cloths,” he agreed, glancing at the strips, wondering why on earth… then deciding it didn’t matter.

  She closed her eyes again. “Sleepy.”

  “Do you want me to put your dinner in the bar fridge?” he asked, thinking she might sleep through after all. “You can have it for breakfast.” With Wynne in the house, a slumbering Venus would much more convenient, and if she didn’t want left–over sea shanties for breakfast, he’d make her something else.

  “Sleepy,” she murmured again and this time her head rolled back to centre and an arm flopped across the bed, its purple hand protruding through the strips. “Sleep…”

  “Good plan,” he said softly and stepped away, about to go back to the sitting room and put the food in the fridge until he saw something poking out from under the bed. He reached down and retrieved… a photo album. He glanced at Venus, then opened the first page and saw wedding photos of his parents. “Oh God,” he whispered. This hadn’t been in the guest suite. She had been roaming around naked. She must have found it somewhere — his father’s room? Baz swallowed down the sick feeling that idea created. If his father had found her there…

  He snapped the photo album closed and took it with him when he left, blaming himself for not being more careful. He had to remember to lock the door. Which he did now, fumbling with the key.

  Then as he walked down the hallway he spared a thought for Wynne. She’d be waiting, wondering where he was… What if Venus had ventured into her room? Naked. The very idea was enough to raise a cold sweat.

  Baz put the photo album down on the desk in the library and was about to head back to the kitchen when he realised he’d done nothing to investigate why Venus reminded him of someone from his childhood. If there had been a woman at Saltwood who looked like Venus twenty years ago, maybe there was a photo of her visit.

  With that idea in mind he turned his back to the door, hiding his actions, and flipped the album open: wedding photos in the front, people he didn’t know at his parents’ reception, then further on in the album a photo of his mother with a big belly. He smiled at that, although his mother’s smile in the photo was strained. His father had a hand on her stomach and he looked delighted. Baz was surprised by that. Nice to know his father had been happy about the idea of a child, even if he had ended up being disappointed.

  The rest of the album were of mother and son, as Baz grew from a baby to a toddler then on to be a young boy. His mother’s arms always held him tightly, yet the expression in her eyes was growing sadder over time. Occasionally there were other people, but not the woman Baz vaguely remembered. Nothing to explain why Venus continued to seem familiar to him.

  He put the album back on the desk, frowning, then he realised he had to focus. Finding who Venus reminded him of wasn’t urgent. Getting through the coming evening was. He needed to get his scattered thoughts under control.

  The first thing to accomplish was serving dinner. “Party pies. I can do this,” he told himself firmly. Venus would keep until morning. The police couldn’t get through. And Wynne would be a welcome distraction from his father’s madness.

  Tomorrow… well, God only knew what that would bring, what with the police who were still after Venus, the Power of Attorney forms he had to get his father to sign, when every day the old man got weirder and more cantankerous, Randolph waiting in the wings to take his inheritance, and Venus who seemed determined to get pregnant before she went back… somewhere.

  What’s happening with my horoscope this week?

  Baz shook his head, wondering if he should just go to bed and hope he woke up to a new life.

  “Party pies,” he said again, and tried to conjure enthusiasm.

  It didn’t work.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Liam Moore scraped mud off his boots onto the thick doormat outside the Marine Park Authority’s offices. There was only a faint light on in the rear of the prefab building, but he knocked anyway. Traci Knowles, the new marine biologist, had rung Waikeri earlier in the afternoon asking him to pick up her report on the blue scales, saying it needed to be viewed “in context”, whatever the hell that meant. Waikeri was busy entertaining Vigo Skeyne and his team who’d moved into the Crystal Cove Caravan Park, so Moore was the one who’d driven an hour to be standing out in the cold with wet clothes and an empty stomach as dusk settled on a long, frustrating day.

  There was no movement from inside so he knocked again, wondering if he was in for a lecture about marine conservation. He’d already wasted four hours out on the Wilson’s private road trying to move a bogged Datsun with his broken winch. And now while Waikeri was warm and dry somewhere, probably drinking beer and eating pizzas, Moore was stuck out at Bargara waiting for a report that already stunk of mystery even before he’d heard it.

  He pulled back from trying to see into the dark interior to notice his reflection in the sliding glass door. His short blond hair was sticking up at odd angles so he wiped a tired hand over it, trying to smooth it down. If he hadn’t been in uniform he wouldn’t have bothered.

  A noise came from inside and he struggled to paste a polite expression on his face. The glass door in front of him scraped open and a tiny sparrow of a woman in hipster jeans and a cut–off tee shirt appeared. She looked up at him through trendy rectangular glasses and frowned. “You’re not a Maori.”

  “Constable Moore. Picking up the report for Sergeant Waikeri,” he said and stuck out his hand, sounding pompous even to his own ears, but after his run in with the pathologist this morning he’d had enough of yuppie urbanites for one day.

  “Doctor. Knowles. Preparer of the report,” she snapped back in a drill sergeant voice, then she shook his hand firmly. Was that sarcasm in her eyes? Strangely, it relaxed him. Maybe she wasn’t going to be as unprofessional as the pathologist after all, until she repeated, “Moore,” and added, “Are you the idiot who brought that shark murderer Skeyne up here?”

  Well, that would be what a conservationist would say. “Hoping to prevent more needless deaths,” he replied, wondering why he was bothering to justify himself. “The report?” he added.

  She eyed him a moment then said. “This way,” and led him through the sea–grass matted reception to the lab rooms in back. They were white–walled with stainless steel fittings kept immaculately clean.

  His estimation of her rose higher, as did his comfort level. No extraneous clutter here. “I won’t take up any of your time,” Moore said. “If you could just give me the report.”

  “I emailed that to Waikeri ten minutes ago.” She crossed her arms over her
chest, pulling up the tee, revealing a sliver of stomach above her low–slung jeans.

  Moore opened his mouth to tell her off — he had every right to be pissed about having to come out in the rain for nothing — but that glimpse of tanned stomach gave him pause, so his reply when it emerged was tense rather than sarcastic. “Then you asked him to come here because… ?”

  “I’ve heard he’s a fat fucker, so I thought he could use the exercise.”

  She was being completely serious, and before Moore knew it he was smiling at her. “Sorry it’s just me then.”

  Knowles assessed him from behind her glasses, as if he was a bug on a slide. “You’re not so ugly when you smile,” she said.

  “And you’re not so terrifying when you’re taking the mickey.”

  She frowned. “I’m five foot nothing,” she said. “How could I be terrifying?”

  “Pocket monster.” He nodded sagely.

  She glanced down at his left hand. “You married?” she asked straight out.

  He shook his head. “You?”

  She shook hers in reply. “Not currently.”

  Pause.

  “Okay,” he said.

  They looked at each other for a couple of interesting seconds before she turned and picked up a book off the stainless steel table. Eight–by–ten color enlargements of the scales stayed behind with and a handful of printed out pages that looked like they’d come from a website.

  “Your perpetrator’s female,” Knowles said, and when Moore raised an eyebrow she added slyly, “I was pretending to be a fish profiler.”

  So she could joke. Not autistic then.

  “Wish you were one,” he replied. “Particularly if you could tell me she was five foot ten with blue eyes and golden hair.”

  If only it could be that easy.

  “Is that your suspect?” Knowles asked.

  Moore nodded.

  “Unless she’s a mermaid, I’m guessing not.”

  “The scales are definitely off a fish?”

  It was Knowles’ turn to raise her eyebrows. “What did you think they were off?”

  “Don’t ask,” he said, mentally blaming himself for bringing up the subject of the girl’s nail polish with Waikeri. Stupid connection. Still, he had to ask, “They didn’t have any glue on them?”

  “Glue?”

  “They weren’t fish scales that had been glued to something.”

  “They were fish scales attached to a fish,” she replied, and glanced at his uniform as if assuring herself that she had let a police constable in and not some fruitcake who peddled conspiracy theories on the Internet.

  “You’re absolutely sure about that?”

  She blinked at him for a second, then turned and pointed at a certificate hung on the wall.

  Moore got the message. “Okay, what sort of fish?”

  She looked at him a moment longer, as if convincing herself that the last ten seconds had been a joke, then she said, “Can’t be sure,” and gestured for him to sit at the table. She flicked pages in the book while he did, then she put it into his hands. “The scales are large and the color is unique. They don’t match any fish we have samples of, so it’s either a completely new species…”

  “Or?”

  “The only close match is a Blue Gasper, believed to have gone extinct in the twenties.” She pointed to a black and white sketch of a rotund fish with google eyes. Beside it was a blurred photo of a fisherman holding up a chewed off tail.

  Moore wrinkled his nose. “Ugly.”

  “Quite,” she agreed. “Although the illustration is a stab in the dark to be honest. There were only ever three tails found so the artist had to guess at the rest of the fish’s structure. None of the tails were kept.” She glanced down at the book for a moment and he heard her taking deep slowly breaths. “Apparently, they tasted like pork.”

  He frowned in sympathy. “No scales kept for posterity?”

  Behind her glasses her left eye twitched. “Not… one,” she said slowly. Scary scientist. Moore was thinking he should find her a Valium when she sucked in a deep shuddering breath and seemed to pull herself together. “In any case,” she went on, “the Gasper was a North Atlantic fish. Our water is too warm to support it.”

  “Washed out of the bilge of a tanker?” he asked, but she shook her head so he dropped his gaze to the caption on the drawing. “One meter long when fully matured?”

  “That’s the guesstimate, unless the specimens found were immature.”

  “Not big enough to cause the chest trauma that drowned the victim then?

  “Agreed,” she said. “And the scales are unrelated to the shark. They were imbedded in the victim’s chest near his collarbone. The shark’s incision is below the ribs.” She was frowning with a scientist’s typical brainiac interesting puzzle to solve expression and that annoyed Moore, until he realised that poor–guy–getting–his–arse–chewed–off sympathy wasn’t going to help anyone. So expecting her to have a woman’s reaction was his problem, not hers. She was clearly a professional, and Moore respected that. When she added, “The pathologist has sent scales to Brisbane for urgent DNA testing. He’ll email me the results,” Moore nodded in approval.

  Although it was obvious, he still said, “We need to know how the victim came to be drowned when the shark got him.”

  Knowles shut the book and put it back on a shelf. “The pathologist said the victim had been trying to save a drowning girl. He wasn’t a strong swimmer.” She turned back to Moore. “What’s the mystery? People drown every day.”

  “You’re right,” Moore said. “No mystery at all.” He should have been relieved to know there weren’t two dangerous creatures roaming out there. But something still niggled at him. Something not right. “Anything else you can tell me about the shark itself?” he asked, partly because he needed information for Skeyne, and partly because he’d just realised he was enjoying her company. A lot.

  “I’ve gone over the photographs of the victim’s body looking at the size of the incisions,” she said, and then frowned for a couple of seconds before she went on. “They’re unlike any I’ve ever seen before. I’m finding it hard to estimate the shark’s size.”

  “It decimated a pod of whales at Hervey Bay this afternoon,” he said. “Right in front of a catamaran full of Japanese tourists. Did you know that?”

  “A whole pod?” She gave him a doubting glance. “There’s a marine biology team from the Queensland University of Technology in Hervey Bay for the whale migration season,” she said. “Do they know to look out for it?”

  Moore shrugged. “The tourists said the shark was bigger than their thirty meter cat.”

  This time Knowles was openly skeptical. “Thirty meters?”

  “I know that must be an exaggeration –”

  “The only thirty meter shark that ever existed was a Megalodon and that’s been extinct for twenty five millions years. Were the tourists drunk?”

  “No idea,” he said. “We’re waiting for a full report.”

  She shook her head in disbelief and reached across the desk to pick up an envelope. “I’ve written up a report on the shark for your marine murderer friend,” she said and handed it over. “It tells him everything we know so far.”

  “That’s gracious of you,” he said straight–faced.

  “Just doing my job,” she replied, the subtle sarcasm flying right over her head. “If he somehow manages to catch it, don’t let him mutilate it.”

  “What if the shark is bigger than you think?” he asked, holding her gaze. “Skeyne could get into trouble.”

  “Skeyne looks for trouble,” she pointed out. “But if you’re worried, tell him to leave it to the QUT team. Their boat is huge, and they have all the equipment they need to track and trap a shark, no matter how big it is.”

  “Fair enough.” Moore could imagine where Skeyne would tell him to shove that suggestion.

  “I’ll contact the QUT team and give them the heads–up,” she added
, “Now show me exactly where the victim was found.”

  She scooped up a handful of maps from a nearby bench and came back and sat at the table – not across from him, but alongside. Their knees touched as she pulled in her chair and Moore was surprised at how that small contact affected his body. If they’d been naked with their skin touching he couldn’t have been more aware of her.

  “Somewhere around here?” she asked, pushing a map in front of him, then looking up at him over the top of her glasses, seemingly completely oblivious to the chemistry between them.

  Moore suddenly realised he could smell something on her skin, some light perfume. Apple?

  “Moore?” she said, frowning.

  “Near Saltwood,” he replied, getting a grip, keeping his voice business–like when his mind was anything but. He dragged his gaze away from hers and looked blindly at the map. It could have been Madagascar and he wouldn’t have known. “South of Bundaberg,” he said.

  She pulled that map away and replaced it with another. “Near here then?” she asked, pointing.

  Belatedly Moore got his bearings. “Right here,” he said, and she marked the headland with a cross.

  They sat back and looked at each other. Moore wondered if the gentle warmth building inside himself was one–sided. Probably. “So,” he said, “My five foot ten suspect with blue eyes and golden hair is off the hook.”

  “Unless you’re interested to ask her to dinner at the Bayside Bistro this Saturday night.”

  Moore felt the warmth blossom into a smile. “Nah. Not interested to ask her out.”

  Knowles nodded. “Then you’ll have to find someone else who’s available… if you want to go?”

  His smile faded as the intensity between them ramped up a notch. “Oh yeah, I want,” he said, surprised at how easy it was to be honest with her.

  Knowles nodded. “Thought so,” she replied.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Baz rounded the corner of the study and felt an instant pang of relief. “Dad, there you are.” Baz hadn’t had children, but he was sure that the feeling of not knowing where his father was must be like losing your toddler in the shopping centre. The old man was generally safe if he stayed in the house or the area immediately outside it, but if he wandered off into the scrubland beyond, anything could happen. Baz had been mad to send him outside at night for roses. “Why aren’t you in the dining room?”