Siren's Secret
Evidently, Jolene had resorted to the world’s oldest profession to supplement that meager income.
Tillman snapped the file shut. Despite door-to-door interviews in Jolene’s neighborhood and surrounding area, Tillman’s officers had no leads.
Tillman shoved the file to the side of his desk and opened the second folder with photographs of the second victim, China Wang. Age thirty-seven. Vietnamese.
She had the same missing eyeballs as Jolene. But there, the similarities ended. Where Jolene had been a big-boned, redheaded woman, China was petite and exotic-looking. Never married, but with three young children, now farmed out to relatives, she had spoken broken English and never made it past the sixth grade.
The only obvious similarity between the two victims was their line of work.
Because of the festering pockets of poverty in the bayou, it wasn’t unheard of for women to use their bodies. Often to drum up enough business, it was necessary for them to ride into Mobile, about twenty miles east, and walk along the port city’s shipping docks for johns. Even in bad economic times, customers could be found if you priced yourself competitively.
He tapped his fingers on his lips. Jolene’s body didn’t have a rope around it and it was discovered by Old Man Higginbotham who’d been out boat riding in a remote swampy area.
When China’s body had been found on shore at Murrell’s Point, there was a thick rope around the victim’s waist that frayed at the ends. The body hadn’t been submerged in water long enough for the rope to have disintegrated. He dialed the coroner’s office, anxious to see what forensic evidence had been unearthed.
Jeff Saunders was the Englazia County coroner. A retired doctor, Tillman bet Saunders thought being coroner in a small town would be an easy gravy train. But that had all changed.
Saunders confirmed sperm was found in China’s body, but the sample would have to be sent to the state crime lab in Montgomery to know if it matched the sperm sample from Jolene Babineaux. “We did find a curious thing with the second body. I recovered a couple strands of blond hair, thirty-one inches long, interspersed with the strands of China’s black hair.”
Tillman sat up straighter. “Can you determine if the hair came from a male or female?”
“Probably not. Unless the hair was yanked out of the scalp, there won’t be enough follicular matter to run a DNA test.”
China’s family all resembled her, olive-skinned with dark brown or black hair. Tillman hung up. He tilted back in his chair, feet on his desk, and speculated on the news.
It could be the killer didn’t act alone. Perhaps he had a female accomplice, Tillman thought, remembering the small footsteps they’d found leading from the body into the water. But the psychological profile from the first case indicated the perp had a deep hatred of women. If true, a female accomplice seemed unlikely.
How had the body been moved to shore? And why?
The plastic bags covering China had been coated in sand, leaving patterns consistent with dragging. A thorough search had not turned up any evidence other than a baseball hat with Trident Processing and Packing emblazoned on it and footprints. Had the killer decided against leaving the body in the ocean and left it out to be found—either a subconscious wish to be caught or as a kind of sick bragging trophy that he had gotten away with murder twice now? And what was that damn rope around China supposed to be for?
Carl Dismukes rapped sharply on the door before entering.
“A little brain food,” he said, plopping a box of glazed doughnuts on the desk.
“A little cliché, don’t you think?” Tillman asked. “But I could use the sugar and carbs right about now.”
They dug in, Tillman studying China’s photograph, his deputy opening the first file and reviewing Jolene’s photographs. Carl threw it back on the desk after a cursory examination. “I ever tell you I knew Jolene?”
Tillman gulped down a mouthful of doughnut in surprise. “No. I think that’s something you might have mentioned long before now.” He struggled to keep his censure mild. Carl was thirty years his senior and his dad’s right-hand man when he’d served as sheriff. When Dad died from a heart attack two years ago, Carl had been the one to break the news to him. And it was Carl’s suggestion that he come home and fill his father’s position until the next election.
Tillman had been torn. He loved being an investigator with the Mobile P.D. and thought he’d been falling in love with Marlena. But shortly before Dad died, she’d moved to Atlanta to further her interior design business. Mobile was plenty big enough; he had no intention of moving to Atlanta. Besides, after he’d taken her home the first time, he’d known it would never work. Mom had been tipsy and asked pointed questions about Marlena’s family pedigree, while Eddie had taken an immediate dislike to his girlfriend. “Bye-bye,” he kept telling Marlena, taking her arm and leading her to the door. In the end, Tillman knew his duty and he’d come home.
The doughnut settled heavy on his stomach and Tillman pushed the box in Carl’s direction. “Just how well did you know Jolene?”
“Not that good.” Carl held up a hand and rolled his eyes. “Never been a customer. Your dad and I went to her place a time or two over the years. Typical domestic violence stuff. Her latest man would beat her, but by the time we got there Jolene would refuse to press charges.” Carl ran his fingers through his close-cropped silver hair. “I felt sorry for her little ones.”
Tillman had his share of those calls when working the beat in Mobile. It was always the kids you remembered most. Scared and hopeless before they graduated elementary school.
“How much longer on that forensics lab report?” Carl asked.
“Another two weeks at the earliest.” Tillman filled him in on the blond hair discovery.
“Doubt much will come of that. Damn salt water kills everything.”
“But it could answer how the body got back on shore.” Tillman mulled over the hair. “It didn’t come from the teenagers that found her. They both had dark brown hair.”
“It’s possible someone else came across the victim before our lovebirds. She—or he—was unsure what was under those plastic bags and tore into it to look. When they saw what was inside they panicked and ran away.”
“I’ve called my old partner at Mobile P.D. to see if they have any missing person cases for known prostitutes. Just in case our killer has spread a wider net.”
Carl shook his head. “Something tells me our perp hasn’t stopped at two victims.” He clapped Tillman’s back. “Damn shame it’s happened on your watch.” Carl hesitated. “But at least your dad was spared this. He had enough on his plate without chasing a serial killer.”
Not to mention taking care of his wife, Tillman silently added. But if Dad didn’t want to break their family’s code of silence, then he wouldn’t, either.
“Here’s something I whittled for Eddie.” Carl set a three-inch wooden block on the desk.
Not another one, he inwardly groaned. Eddie’s room was overflowing with Carl’s creations. He opened a drawer and placed it in a bag filled with about twenty similar blocks. As his deputy meandered away, Tillman put in a call to Sam, his old partner, to talk things out.
“You’ve got a disaster brewing,” Sam commented. “Thought moving to Hicksville would be a bore. One more body surfaces and the FBI is on your doorstep. Good luck with that.”
Most law enforcement officers were territorial and hated outsiders coming in. But if the manpower would help catch a killer faster, he was all for it.
Tillman hung up and closed his eyes, wanting to erase the violent images. The investigation had been eating at him, long days and nights of nothing but working the case or helping out Mom and Eddie. Damn it, he was tired of living like a monk, all work and no play.
Unbidden, he pictured Shelly, the way her wet bathing suit had clung to her smoking body, the friendly green eyes and long hair plastered around her hips...a hot angel of deliverance.
Chapter 3
A mermaid—really? Can this be?
A creature of part land, part sea.
Mustn’t let a siren’s call
Make me falter, make me fall.
Melkie cruised the back roads, Rebel drooling and snorting by his side. He had no particular destination, but after hearing on the local television news that a second body had turned up on the beach, he’d been going increasingly mad at home. He kept waiting for a knock at the door, his paranoia growing with every second enclosed in the shotgun house.
How had that body gotten to the shore? That woman—that thing—must have put it there. Melkie found himself on a road leading to Murrell’s Point. Rounding a bend, he spotted half a dozen police and sheriff’s vehicles gathered on one side of the road.
Right there. That must be where they’d found it.
He was suffocating, the truck’s interior closing in on him. The old truck’s dying AC was no match against the pepper-hot heat. Maybe the cops were here waiting for him to return to the crime scene. They already knew he was the one. His life was over. He’d rot at Holman prison on death row. His breath came in painful, jagged spasms and his body knotted with tension.
The wet sensation of tongue on his right forearm broke through the paralysis. Rebel licked and whimpered, attuned to Melkie’s panic. The dog’s eyes, despite their disarming milky haze, pierced Melkie with pure love.
He caught his breath and patted Rebel’s hairless flesh. What would happen to his dog if they took him away? He had no friends or family. And everyone found Rebel repulsive, even though he was worth more than the rest of that sorry-assed lot of humanity.
Melkie turned his head from the cops and kept his eyes focused on the road ahead. The azure-blue of the sky met the gray-blue of ocean in a horizontal line. The moment passed, and he looked out the rearview mirror at the uniformed police scouring the area.
Fucking pigs. Where were they when he was getting punched around as a kid?
The familiar rage tamped down on the residual panic.
“How about you and me getting a little treat?” he asked Rebel, who yipped in excitement.
He pulled into the drive-through at the hamburger shack in town and ordered cheeseburgers and fries for both of them, plus a chocolate milkshake for himself. The fat-and-sugar rush sated his gnawing anxiety. Why had he been so freaked out? There was nothing that could tie him to the murders. He was safe.
He was contentedly gulping the last of his shake when a purple-and-pink sign slammed into his consciousness.
The Mermaid’s Hair Lair.
What the hell?
Mermaid. The word was a red neon light burning in his brain.
He’d lived here all his life, been down this main street forever, but had never paid much attention to the beauty parlor or the large water fountain in the court square with a figure of a mermaid sculpted in copper.
The image of the thing in the water arose. Melkie slammed on his brakes and parked at the first empty spot. Rebel gazed at him quizzically, panting onion breath.
Wouldn’t hurt to look in the window. Melkie put a leash on Rebel and knelt down to whisper. “We’ll just walk real casual-like, okay?” He stood, took a deep breath and sauntered by the shop. The ever-present smell of bilge and shucked oysters assaulted his nose.
In the salon window he saw old ladies in chairs, gray hair tightly bound in perm rollers, with bubble dryers over them, a few younger clientele getting bleach jobs. The interior was painted in shades of coral, with paintings of mermaids hung all over the walls.
He knew just how it would smell, the stinky ammonia fumes and peroxide in the air so strong it would make your eyes water. His stomach rumbled and he was back in that dumpy house, Mom and her whore friends dyeing each other’s hair and preparing for the night’s work.
“There’s little Melkie,” one of them would coo, beckoning him over with long red nails.
His face aflame, he’d have to go into the gaggle of whores. Nine years old and the stupid bitches would pull down his shorts and giggle.
“Let me feel that cute little pecker.” They’d grab him and fondle and laugh at the predictable response.
Especially dear old Mom.
She’d refused to allow him to cut his hair. She and her posse of bitches teased him about his thick, wavy hair and would put rollers in it and paint his face. A few years later he decided it was worth the ass whupping to disobey Mom and cut it short.
Even now, the memories churned his stomach. That cheeseburger wasn’t such a hot idea, after all.
The sight of a woman with long blond hair caught his attention. She stood behind a chair, wielding a pair of shears with grace and authority. Her hair was unusual, a thick honey-gold confection with streaks of the palest pink and lavender. On her, the highlights looked natural, not like on the phony Goth teenagers you saw in Mobile these days with bold colors against black hair.
His mermaid that night had long hair, but impossible to make out the color other than it was light. It had hung down the front of her torso like a second skin.
What if...what if this was her? Maybe she had the ability to be on land and sea. It wasn’t such a stretch to think the thing had some kind of mutation abilities. He recalled those eyes of swirling colors. Melkie peered intently at the woman’s reflection in the mirrored walls. The eyes were a perfectly human shade of blue, not that freaky cat-eyed glow he’d seen.
He would seek out Tia Henrietta. The hoodoo witch down in the boondocks might know something. He’d never placed any faith in the old woman’s tales but his mother and sisters and all their buddies swore by her occult powers.
If anybody knew something about mermaids or sea creatures, it would be her.
* * *
Shelly leaned back in the beautician’s chair and let Lily massage her head and neck as she washed her hair. It was after hours at the shop, but when Lily had heard about her date, she wanted Shelly to come on in and get gorgeous.
“Your neck muscles are tight,” Lily said. “Relax.”
Lily’s soothing voice failed its usual magic. As did the varying shades of coral, rose and ivory on the walls that a local artist had painted to their specification. The effect of the pearly tones usually soothed Shelly—it was like being enveloped in the shelter of a giant conch shell.
Shelly opened her eyes and met Lily’s in the mirror. “How can I relax?” The half-moon dark circles under her eyes and the faint lines of worry on her brow were new. “I’m scared to death that psycho will find one of us.”
“You’re here with us now.” Lily pressed her strong fingers on a trigger point at the base of Shelly’s skull. “Nothing’s happened.”
Jet looked up from the desk. “Good thing you have a date tomorrow night. Nothing like a man for distraction. Just don’t let it get serious.” Her fingers resumed their clicking on the adding machine. Thank goodness Jet actually enjoyed working with numbers, since Shelly and Lily avoided it as much as possible. At the shop Lily was in her element and had earned a reputation for her talents. Jet handled the business end of things and filled in as shampoo girl when needed.
Shelly groaned. “I haven’t been on a real date in two years. I’m a nervous mess.”
Lily laughed. “Just have fun. A man’s attention will get rid of a funk every time.”
The adding machine’s clicking stopped. “Attention, hell,” Jet said. “We’re talking sex.”
“You’re almost thirty years old, in your sexual prime,” Lily continued. “I couldn’t go without it more than a couple of weeks myself. And it’s been months since I’ve been with a merman.” A dreamy look clouded her eyes. “Nothing like sex with a real merman.”
Shelly eyed Lily curiously. As a full-blooded siren, her cousin responded instinctually to the call of an annual spawning ritual. Mermen and mermaids gathered at a remote South Pacific island for a week of orgies. Those inclined to produce a litter of merchildren built undersea nests in beds of coral for fertilizing and hatching their newborn.
Shelly had no desire to attend a reproduction ritual. Not that she would be allowed—that right was reserved only for the full-blooded. Raised as a landlubber in a human family, the whole thing sounded bizarre and unappealing. Regular sex, right here in the bayou, would be exciting enough. She shut her eyes, imagining Tillman’s naked body against hers. It had been so long since she’d desired a man.
“Little cuz is blushing,” Jet said wryly.
Lily rinsed Shelly’s hair. “No teasing,” she scolded. Lily placed a warmed towel over Shelly’s head and rubbed. “Any special style requests?”
“I leave it all in your hands. Even if I don’t like it, it will grow out in no time.”
“Our hair is a pain in the fins,” Jet said, her eyes still on the numbers. “Easiest thing to do is just keep it hacked off like mine.”
Lily and Shelly shared a secret smile. Their mermaid hair grew at a rate of nearly an inch a week and their nails grew so fast weekly manicures were a must. “I like the long layers you have in it now,” Shelly said. “Just give it a good trim and blow-dry it.”
Shelly relaxed as the warmth and noise of the blow-dryer eased her tension. Everything was going to be okay. They had done what they could to help the police identify the killer by putting the body on land. Well, almost everything. She still had the knife.
Her mind drifted to the date. She’d had her eye on Tillman for quite a while. But she didn’t think he even noticed her. He was always so remote and professional the few times he’d picked up Eddie. Shelly imagined those gray eyes darkening with desire for her and squirmed.
Stop it. You’re way past the age to be so nervous about a date. It’s just...sex and companionship. That’s all she could hope for since that was all she could offer. No man wanted to love a freak; it could only end in disaster. Her parents’ stormy marriage was proof of that. All the tears, the shouting, the fundamental differences that stifled her mother’s mermaid desire to be at sea and frustrated her human father, who resented that his love wasn’t enough to make her happy. The answer lay in a long-term affair of mutual affection. Sure, she risked him finding out her secret. But she was tired of being alone. She knew her cousins were there for her, but it wasn’t the same. It could never be the same. She was part human...they weren’t.
Jet interrupted her thoughts. “Tell us about this guy. How did you meet him?”
“He’s the older brother of Eddie, one of my clients at the Y.”
Jet crossed her arms over her chest. “Could be awkward if you break up and you have to keep running into him.”
“Always the pessimist,” Lily murmured. “Just think of having a good time for as long as it lasts.” A smile tugged her lips. “In fact, pass him on to me when you’re done with him. I cut Gary loose a couple days ago.”
Jet yawned and headed to the break room. “I need coffee.”
“You’ve only been seeing Gary a month and you’re already bored?” She shouldn’t be surprised; Lily went through men like crazy. A wonder there were still men left in town she hadn’t already had an affair with and then dumped. An unexpected burst of jealousy reared its head. “Is a man named Tillman one of your exes?”
Lily patted the top of Shelly’s head. “I prefer the bad boys, not Boy Scouts who take care of their little brothers.”
Jet returned, coffee cup refilled. Lily turned to her sister. “Learn from Shelly. Get yourself back out there and find you a man.”
“Don’t need ’em,” Jet said, settling back down to the books. “There’s always a one-night stand if I’m in the mood for sex.”
Shelly and Lily eyed each other with a knowing look. Jet had never gotten over Perry and his betrayal. Almost three years had passed since he’d been put in some South American prison for stealing sea treasure and Jet still ached. She’d never admit it, but Shelly suspected her cousin’s life was on hold until Perry showed up again. If he did.
But who was she to judge her cousins? She’d made a mess of her own past love life. Never again would she tell a man her secret and be called a freak. That college experience still rankled. She’d passed off her confession as a drunken fantasy but Steve had dumped her shortly afterward.
Her cousins—and their attitude toward men—was what it was, just as she was a product of her parents’ mixed genetics.
* * *
Melkie drove the endless stretch of sandy back roads that seemed to be never-ending paths to nowhere. Finally he rounded a corner and found Tia Henrietta’s shack.
A scraggly orange tabby came out from behind a bush, arching his back at Rebel. The dog barked and jumped out the truck window before Melkie could stop him.
A screen door banged open. “Call off yer dawg.”
The old woman glared at him with eyes dark as midnight. Under the purple turban her olive skin and faintly almond eyes made her something of an enigma. Melkie wasn’t sure if she was distantly related to the many Vietnamese who worked in the fishing industry, Creole or black, or perhaps a mixture of several races.
He whistled and Rebel slunk to his side, tail tucked between his legs. Melkie patted his head in reassurance.
Tia Henrietta approached. “What you doing way out here?”
“You’re the psychic. You tell me.”
She turned and walked back to the house, surprisingly spry for her age. “You always were a smart-alecky little ’un. C’mon, then.”
They walked to the porch, Melkie motioning Rebel to stay before he followed the old woman inside. For all the unkempt appearance outside, the inside was neat, if shabby.
The place hadn’t changed in the past two decades. Dozens of Jesus and saint candles glowed atop several mini altars of seashells, crystals and peacock feathers. Small pieces of folded-up paper were tucked among the altars. People seeking divine help for their problems. What bullshit.
The same mysterious, earthy scent of smoked herbs pervaded the sitting room.
Tia Henrietta snapped off the small black-and-white TV in the corner.
“Sit.” She gestured to a grandma floral-print sofa that looked like a 1950s thrift shop throwaway.
Melkie carefully sat on the edge. Even with his wiry five-foot-eight-inch frame, he wasn’t confident the crappy furniture would hold. His eyes darted to a glass globe on the end table.
Still there.
He remembered coming here at age eight with his mom and two of her drunken whore friends. They’d stumbled in with their high heels and teased hair, dragging him along like a rag doll. Anita, his mom’s closest friend, had downed tequila shots all morning before deciding it would be a hoot to have Tia foretell her future.
Melkie had picked up the globe. Instead of the usual plastic orb with a trapped Santa Claus and snow swirls, this glass object had a mermaid figurine suspended in blue-tinted water. He had picked it up and shaken it, sending white-and-pink sand swirling around the mermaid.
Whack. A burst of pain had slashed hotly against a cheek.
“Put that down,” Mom had screamed. The globe slipped from his grasp onto the cheap linoleum and rolled. The wooden base broke off.
Could this really be the same one? Melkie picked it up and squinted at the pedestal.
“I hot-glued it back on,” Tia said. “That hot glue gun was the best damn thing I ever bought. That, and duct tape, pretty much holds everything together around here.”
He carefully placed it back on the coffee table. “You remember that day?”
Tia shrugged. “Yer mama is not an easy woman to forget. Heard she died of the cancer a few years back.”
Amen and thank heavens for that.
Tia sat across from him, folded hands in her lap. “So what brings you back here?”
Her eyes were smoldering coals, even beneath some weird kind of film at the corners. Probably cataracts, he guessed. Melkie shifted uncomfortably under the direct gaze. He hated anyone looking at him, especially close up. His fists tightened. Why, he ought to cut out those eyes.... He forced himself to focus and pointed at the globe. “They real? Mermaids, I mean.”