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.

“Possibly.” Kennedy, back to his normal taciturn self, was sorting through the files quickly. He was obviously looking for something specific. Something he had not chosen to share with Jason.

“Possibly?” Jason repeated. “What are the other possibilities? Pink wasn’t acting alone?” We didn’t get the right guy?

No. He didn’t believe it. And, despite what Gervase had said at the crime scene, Jason didn’t think the chief believed it either. The evidence against Pink had been overwhelming.

Kennedy had paused in his search. He didn’t answer Jason.

“Okay.” Jason repeated, “What about the persisting rumor that Pink wasn’t acting alone? Is there any basis for it?”

Kennedy said absently, “I already told you there was no evidence to support that theory.”

“Hey,” Jason said.

Kennedy looked up, frowning.

“Remember me? We’re supposed to be working together.” As Kennedy’s eyes narrowed, Jason continued, “Was anyone besides Pink’s brother identified as a potential accomplice?”

“No. Dwayne Pink primarily came under suspicion because his brother used his van in the commission of his crimes. And because it was hard for anyone to believe that he never had any indication of what Martin was up to.”

Maybe. Unless you were a psychopath yourself it would be almost unimaginable that someone you knew, let alone someone you were related to, was a homicidal maniac.

“What did you think?” Jason asked.

Kennedy drawled, “I thought Dwayne did a lot of dope. Which might have been one reason he didn’t have an inkling. Or maybe he did a lot of dope because he did have an inkling. It’s immaterial because he died two years ago. He’s not involved in this case.”

“Pink didn’t have any other friends or associates who might have taken part in the murders?”

Kennedy had gone back to studying the photos in the file he held. He raised his head, and with an obvious effort at quashing his irritation with yet another interruption, said, “Do you remember Martin Pink at all?”

“A little. He used to fish at Holyoke Pond. Even as a kid I thought there was something not right about him.”

Not right. But not that wrong. Because that wrong was simply inconceivable. Or had been once upon a time.

“Right,” said Kennedy. “Not a popular guy. Not a busy social life. Not a wide circle of friends.”

Jason had to swallow his own annoyance. “Fair enough. Here’s my point. The people of Kingsfield already know that Martin Pink’s brother is dead. And yet the rumor that Pink had an accomplice—and that this accomplice is still out there—continues to circulate. How do you explain that?”

Kennedy stared at him, and Jason felt a jab of satisfaction.

“Charlotte Simpson was just a kid when you solved the original case. Yet she said to me ‘The Huntsman is back’ and ‘Everyone knows there was more than one Huntsman.’ She wasn’t quoting ancient history. She was telling me what she and others currently believe to be true.”

“All right,” Kennedy said. “Go on.”

“You don’t have that kind of rumor without suspicion falling on a specific person. There’s always going to be a particular suspect.”

“That’s debatable.” Even so Kennedy seemed to be mulling over Jason’s words. “This could easily be some kind of urban legend. It wouldn’t be at all surprising under the circumstances.”

“Something else,” Jason said. “When Charlotte was talking to me, her father came out of the back office and shut her up before she could say anything else. It wasn’t subtle.”

“Now that’s not at all surprising.” Kennedy’s tone was dry. “The only other person who came even briefly under suspicion as Pink’s possible accomplice was George Simpson.”

“George Simpson?” Jason repeated. “The George Simpson who went out to Rexford with us today?”

“The same.”

“The George Simpson who, according to Chief Gervase, knows these woods like the back of his hand?”

“That’s right.” Meeting Jason’s look, Kennedy smiled faintly. “No. Simpson was cleared of all suspicion.”

“Why was he under suspicion in the first place?”

“Because Simpson sold the mermaids to Pink.”

It was plain English, but the words didn’t make sense. Jason said, “You lost me. Sold what mermaids to Pink?”

“Ah. You wouldn’t know about that. We kept it out of the press.” Kennedy slid the photo he had been scrutinizing across the desktop.

Jason picked it up. It took a second or two to make sense of what he was seeing. A small talisman or charm carved out of what was probably wood and enlarged many times over so the details of the carving were clear. Tiny scales and fins on a small female form that was half human and half fish.

A mermaid.

“What is this?” His throat felt tight. He already knew what it was. Honey had carried one like it that summer. A small mermaid charm on her key ring.

“Nearly every one of Pink’s victims was found with one of those,” Kennedy said. “A carved mermaid charm. Each one distinct but similar.”

“Found with them?” Jason echoed. His stomach gave an unhappy lurch as he remembered Kennedy squatting beside Rebecca, taking his pen out, and leaning over her body.

“In their mouths,” Kennedy said. “Each girl had a mermaid in her mouth.”