False Mermaid

“Not anymore. Cormac said this whole village was abandoned—” She stopped as her gaze fell upon a primitive muslin doll in Elizabeth’s left hand. It had one small black button eye on one side of a long nose; a bit of stuffing escaped from a frayed seam. “Where did you get that?” she asked.

“Over there.” Elizabeth indicated the cot pushed up against the wall.

“May I see it?” Nora asked. The single button eye stared blankly. The arms were flat and stubby, like flippers, the lower half all of a piece. A seal. She finally handed the doll back, and Elizabeth cradled it on her lap.

Nora took a deep breath. “You know we’ll have to talk about it, sooner or later, Lizzabet. About why you ran away. I think I can guess part of it. You found out, didn’t you—about what happened to your mama?”

Elizabeth stared wordlessly at the floor. After a few seconds, she wiped away a tear, and Nora felt as if her heart would burst. “Oh, Lizzabet, I wish we could have explained, but you were so little. It was so hard to know what to say—” She reached out a hand, but Elizabeth pulled away.

“Does everybody think my dad is a murderer?”

“Elizabeth—”

“He didn’t do anything, I know he didn’t. He couldn’t have.”

“There’s still so much we don’t know—”

“I don’t want to know! I’m not going to listen.” Elizabeth covered her head with both arms and began to weep. Nora felt helpless. What could she say to this child? What reassurances could she possibly offer?

She said nothing, but pulled the child to her side. Elizabeth tried to fight, but in the end clung on just as she had out in the water, frightened and overwhelmed. This is it,Nora thought. This is where it begins.

At last, warmed by the tiny fire, and no doubt worn out by jet lag and tears, Elizabeth’s limbs began to grow heavy. Nora cradled her, afraid to move, knowing how desperately she needed even the temporary respite of sleep. By the time either of them stirred, twenty minutes later, Nora’s whole right side had gone numb.

Elizabeth opened her eyes and pulled away, evidently surprised to be in the cottage still. “I had a dream about this place,” she said. She seemed dazed, unsettled, perhaps still half in the dream. “There were people living here. Somebody was singing.” Elizabeth found the muslin doll on her lap, and began to fiddle with its ragged tail.

“Do you know, even with your hair cut short, you’re very like your mother?”

Elizabeth didn’t want to let on how interested she was in this information. “Really?”

“The same hair, the same freckles, even the same scabby knees. Tríona was always falling off her bike.”

“Is that true?”

“It is.” She reached up to smooth a ragged lock over Elizabeth’s forehead. “Do you remember much about her?”

Elizabeth stared at the floor again, thinking. “I remember how she smelled—like lemony soap.” A slight hesitation, a rubbing of the eyes. “Sometimes she let me climb up in the bed with her. She said she would read to me, but usually she just fell asleep. She slept a lot. That was okay. I knew how to make my own breakfast.”

Climbing back over the headland again a short while later, Nora felt something heavy and damp strike against her shoulder and fall to the ground. She looked up to find a sea eagle, probably one of the pair she’d spied earlier, flapping and calling out in dismay. She bent to pick up the object the bird had dropped. It was a black woolen stocking. Quite fine, if slightly moth-eaten in places, and the heel was thickened with darning. Strange thing for a bird to be carrying in a place like this. She was about to drop the stocking on the ground, but reconsidered and hastily stuffed it into her pocket. She could have a closer look at it back at the house.

12

Truman Stark seemed tired; it was nearly four in the morning, and he’d been answering questions since late afternoon. And yet he didn’t seem anxious to go home. Frank couldn’t shake the feeling that there was some extra piece of information the kid wanted to give up—but he didn’t know how.

Frank tapped the pen against his notepad. “Okay, let’s go over it one more time. You admit to following Dr. Gavin from the parking garage on Wednesday afternoon—”

“I knew she had something to do with the murder, the way she was looking at that parking stall—the one where they found the body.”

“So you thought you’d do a little investigation on your own?”

“No law against it, is there? People do stuff like that all the time—when the police fall down on the job—”

“Let’s leave the department out of it for now. So you followed Dr. Gavin home on Wednesday night, and tailed her all the next day. You must have. How else would you know where she was going to be that evening?” Stark didn’t respond, and Frank took it as an admission. “You chased away those kids in Frogtown.” Still no answer. “Then you followed her to the river road, watched her talking to this mystery blonde down at Hidden Falls. They got into an argument, and then what happened?”