Fish Out of Water (7 page)

At the farthest reaches of perception, I made out the tinny echo of John Mellancamp. I realized with relief that was all I could hear.

I moved over to the cold store. Two drawers, not that there’s more than one body to store in this town very often. I tugged on the first drawer, and it was locked. Not that one then. Billy would never do something as careful as that. I pulled on the second one, suddenly hyper-aware, feeling even the cold steel of the handle on my gloved palm.

And there she was.

Her moonbeam hair was splayed out around her, and if I didn’t know better I’d say Billy had arranged it that way. Maybe he did. Maybe even a clod like him could tell there was something special about this one. She still had on the jeans and the cheap white trainers. I touched her cheek, which felt soft and cold. I couldn’t help but whisper out one final prayer.

“Ease her journey, Goddess Mother,” I intoned. And, to her, “Sleep well, little one.”

Guilt washed over me, watching her so peaceful and still. “I’m so sorry… about what we’re going to do. But if I’m gonna find out who hurt you, I need something to go on.”

4:00am: Dirtwater Morgue

“Okay, so you weren’t kidding.” Larry’s face was grim, the deep lines that normally accentuated his handsomeness intensifying his seriousness. In some other kind of man it’d be freaked out, but Larry’s seen a lot. “She really is from someplace else.”

“Yep.” I wasn’t sure what else to say.

“Someplace wet?” He was asking the question but it wasn’t really a question.

“Yep,” I confirmed again, shortly. “Very wet. What gave it away?”

“Well…” Larry scratched his head, as if
where to start?

“The dual respiratory system, that’s kind of unique, and these interesting internal gill things. Nice. Beautiful, actually, I’d be inclined to say. So… tidy.”

He stood back, as if admiring a work of art, and considered Blondie for another moment or two. She was stretched out on the long white bench. It was dark. He’d used only the lights he absolutely needed for the clandestine procedure. But I could tell he’d been careful, and neat as ever. The railroad track across her chest and forehead was made up of perfect little stitches, and there wasn’t a trace of blood or fluid on her.

He kept looking at her, carefully wiping down a line of tiny silver instruments.

“Then there’s the dermis. Our skin’s waterproof, but this stuff, this is something else altogether. Looks like ours, but is actually made of these microscopic organic shields. Scales, I guess you’d call then. Perfectly adapted for long term submersion. Reminds me of this incredible scuba get-up a SEAL buddy of mine usedta have. I won’t even go into what I found in here.”

He tapped Blondie’s forehead gently.

“But let’s put it this way Rania. I always knew you were a smart girl. But what I’ve seen here today makes me wanna ask what the hell’s a smart fish like you doin’ in a dive like this?”

I smiled at him wanly. It felt weird, hearing her described this way. Hearing me described this way. “What else?”

“Well. There’s the muscular-skeletal system, but I probably shoulda guessed about that. After all, those arm wrestles have been messin’ with my head for… what? Thirteen years now?”

He shook his head. “Incredible artistry, y’know that? The weighting system built into the sinews. That how you guys stay under? No dive belts needed. And then her vocal apparatus. Amazing. I guess it’s hard to communicate underwater without some special equipment.”

I was smiling again although my whole body felt numb.

But we needed to cut to the chase. I needed to know what he was able to find out about what happened to her. Whether he could give me any leads. Because I’d surprised myself by not being able to watch the autopsy. Weirder and weirder. I’ve seen dozens of them, and I was only sick once, the first time. But something about her, so still and perfect and secret. Relying on me to find out what happened. I couldn’t watch her get cut.

And maybe it was more than that. Maybe I was just getting squeamish about death as my own appointed time drew closer. As I wondered if I’ll be lying on some slab, just like Blondie…

So I’d sneaked outside and avoided the temptation to ransack the morgue for stray cigarettes, raiding the fridge instead. Larry keeps it stocked. Three bagels, four slices of cheese, two quarts of orange juice and three Hershey bars later, Larry was done. “So did she give anything away? About her death?” My voice sounded shaky and I didn’t like it, so I tried again. “I mean, probably not, I know. Nothing visible from the outside. Anything internal?”

Larry scratched his big grey beard again as he spoke carefully. “Most things seem to be in place. Far as I can tell, of course, not being an expert on what ‘in place’ is supposed to look like for her. But there was something odd.”

I leaned forward, desperately curious and sick inside at the same time.

“It’s her ears,” Larry said. Then paused, like he didn’t quite have it right. “Okay, not her ears exactly. More like deep inside the ear canal.”

“What is it?” The creepy fingers of fear I hadn’t shaken off tightened their grip.

“It’s like…” He searched for the right analogy. “The tissue in there’s all been melted.”

“Melted?” I was confused. “Like with heat?”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “But… not. I mean, it looks melted. Hmmm… no. Dissolved. Turned to mush and nothing.”

My mouth was suddenly very dry, and I got a sheen on my top lip. But I wasn’t gonna lose my lunch in front of Larry, so I reached for the jar of kool mints and gobbled four of them in a row. He silently handed me a glass of water.

“Anything else?” I was asking more to keep busy than anything else.

Larry consulted some notes he’d made on a little pad next to the kool mints.

“Um,” he said, and was I just imagining it or did he look kinda shifty?

“Stomach contents are pretty standard vegetarian fare, but I’d say she’s from the city. God knows you can’t get a good no-meat chow mein round here.”

Huh. I was listening but not computing.

“Otherwise seems to be in good health. No surgery, broken bones, illness.”

Again, not surprising. Aegirans don’t get sick often. With little pestilence and crime, they keep themselves nice well into their sixties and beyond.

Larry went on. “She’s never had a baby.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised. Watch-keepers are young, focused. But Larry’s words made my throat close over. No babies. And now she’ll never have any. They love children, in Aegira. They got population control sorted out several millennia ago, realizing the population couldn’t grow like on The Land if they were to continue to hide. So Aegirans have only one child, but each belongs joyfully to the community, and they share and delight in every birth.

Larry put his book down.

“Rania. There is one other thing, and I don’t know what to make of it so I’ll just tell you.”

He paused again. I’d never seen him look so uncertain as he ran his hands again over his mouth and rubbed at his beard. “Actually,” he corrected himself. “Maybe I’ll just show you.”

He lifted the sheet that he’d used as a modesty cover for Blondie. Her legs were slightly apart underneath it, and the gold of her skin looked impossibly smooth and unbroken against the white of the cotton. Larry pointed, high on her thigh, almost to the top of the inside of her leg. I could see another tattoo, blue-green like the watch-keeper fish. But fresher, a very recent tattoo. I could see the angry red lines indicating it had just been done. And this time it was a name.

My name.
Rania Aqualina
.

Me.

I’m the reason she was here. She came for me.

Suddenly, in my mind’s eye, I saw that big old aquarium, and things started to make sense. I knew how she got here.

But why me?

I was heading out to Doug’s van to go over the drill, trying not to think about the tattoo, just about the plans I’d made with Larry to make the body disappear. Luckily for me, Larry’s got
contacts, because a missing body might cause some waves, sure, but having the wrong people find this particular body could cause a freakin’ tsunami. A whole world of trouble.

For me. My Mom. For my investigation into who hurt her.

And maybe even for the peaceful Aegirans as a whole.

“Thanks for meeting me, Doug.”

He winked one of those swiss chocolate eyes. “I’m your go-to man, girlfriend. You ever need a rocket launcher, call me.”

“Doug,” I exploded. “Please don’t tell me those things. I am enforcement, remember?”

He looked at me pointedly, a smile playing around full lips. “Sorry, oh little-sister-of-mercy. I mistook you for a body-snatcher. Silly ole me.”

“Hardy har har.” I guessed he had a point. I don’t need to read his mind to know he’s got secrets of his own. And he quite likes the stakes even.

It’s weird, you know, that we can’t read human minds. All fish species, yep. Cows, check. Other mermaids, if they let you in, sure. But not humans. I’ve always found that strange. I mean, as far as I can tell, human minds are pretty basic. You’d think they’d be easily accessible. But no. Princess Lecanora used to say we were locked out of human minds because we’d cast them aside. Somehow in the process we’d lost some essentially human part of ourselves that meant we could never really get them, the straight land-dwellers. She said the Prophecy was all about the universe trying to find a way to reconcile the two parts of us, and maybe even the two parts of the world. Earth and Sea.

Nice idea. Shame I won’t be around to see it all happen.

As I stood by the van, I could smell Mexican anise and heat. Licorice and madness.

Without being told, Doug had parked on a kind of meandering back road that snakes up behind the morgue, close to where I’d stashed Ma’s ride. It was out of the way, but still only a few hundred yards across the bramble and gooseberry patches to the morgue. I breathed in wild anise and made Blondie a silent promise.

I will find out who you are. And I will get you home.

I told Doug where we were going once I came back to the van with her, and passed the keys to the facility Larry organized.

“You want me to help?” He was looking at me dead-on.

“Nah,” I sighed. “I’ve got it.”

“What about hefting?”

“I can get her back here. Might need some help at the other end. Stairs.”

I sighed again, and pulled the van door open in the thick, wild silence of frontier heat.

I felt my heartbeat ratchet up as I turned back to the morgue. But Doug stopped me.

“Sheriff. I gotta say something.” A deep frown dipped between those fudgey eyes.

I didn’t need someone spooking me anymore than I already was. “It’ll be fine, D.”

“No, Rania,” he caught my arm. He never called me that. “For some reason I feel like I gotta tell you this now.”

Something in me fretted that he was going to choose now for some romantic declaration. Truth to tell, after I climbed out the window that night a year ago, I mostly felt relief (apart from the ego blow and despite how much I liked hanging with Doug). Then when he reappeared it was easier to play the injured party. You see, I knew then what I know now. I have no future. Even someone like Doug would eventually want more than three weeks. Even if sometimes it seems like falling back into those strong arms would be the easiest thing in the world.

“Later, D,” I said it as gently as I could, pulling away from him.

When I got back to the morgue, Larry was gone, like we’d agreed, and Blondie was waiting. I decided against a gurney, figuring it would make the two of us that much more noticeable as we headed to the van. Instead, I placed my hands under her armpits and pulled her upper torso up towards me, balancing the top half of her against my chest while I made sure I had purchase. And then I lifted her higher, bringing her into a fireman’s haul over my right shoulder, stepping back to adjust her weight and drape her legs down the front of my body.

I jiggled a little. She felt stable. As stable as corpse on your shoulder can be, I guess.

I relaxed a little, feeling confident, certain the expedition was almost over and happy to be making my way out knowing Blondie was going to be safe from prying eyes and the possibility of outing us all.

Then the feeling came again, the wave of
wrongness
. I didn’t have the right words for it, but it was like fingernails on the blackboard of my senses. A disturbance in the air, a shift in the invisible alarm shield we all wear around us that tells us when everything is okay.

Right then I knew for sure that it was so not okay.

This was beyond weird. I’ve always been an intuitive kind of person. I mean, even apart from the mermaid thing, I’m a woman. And a cop. Experience hones your instincts to a razor point. But this was different. It was sensual, like I could smell the change in the air.

My mind whizzed through the possibilities of what was freaking out my radar.

Maybe Doug was out of the van and coming in here to help? But I didn’t think so. It was not The Plan and Doug’s not one to jeopardize a mission without a good reason.

I realized whatever it was, it wasn’t getting better for me standing there trying to smell it.

I had to start moving. I closed the cold drawer as softly as possible.

Blondie and I were moving as one as I retraced my steps.

Back out through the morgue, automatically picking up a
Have you shared your wishes with your loved ones?
pamphlet with my spare hand as I passed through. I thought about Mom.

Should I be telling her what’s going to happen in three weeks?

I chastised myself quickly, remembering I had way more to deal with right now than what kind of funeral I want when I finally bite the dust.

I’d project managed interfering with a body, I was stealing a corpse, and I’d suddenly developed some primal sixth sense that was telling me somehow but for certain that something menacing was waiting for me in the dark.

I was still a couple of hundred yards from the van when I heard something. Singing? I was half-way across the bramble and could see the van when it happened.