False Mermaid

“In the morning. Sure.” He inhaled deeply, as if suddenly exhausted, unable to say any more. It wasn’t only her own life she was disrupting by coming home. Nora found herself wondering what time Frank had been hauled out of bed this morning, how many other cases he was juggling. She could have asked how things were going, but from his appearance here tonight, she could venture a pretty good guess.

When the cab arrived, Frank didn’t say even good night. He climbed into the backseat and gave the driver his address on the West Side. Nora watched the taxi pull away with his head slumped low in the back window.

8

As soon as the cab rounded the corner, Nora unlocked the carriage house door and began to climb the stairs, feeling as though she was moving in slow motion. Another eternity passed as she dragged out her laptop, and finally logged on to the archives at the local newspaper, the Pioneer Press. Another girl, Frank had said, at Hidden Falls. They had never found the exact spot where Tríona was killed. The words from the police report echoed in her ears: Because the body was moved, the location of the primary crime scene remains unknown. All they knew from trace evidence was that Tríona had been attacked in a wooded area, most likely along the Mississippi River. Maybe Hidden Falls. It was just one of many pockets of parkland along the river known as places to drink and get high, where people sometimes shed their clothes along with their inhibitions. Peter Hallett wanted everyone to believe that was what Tríona had done.

Sleep now seemed impossible. Nora typed “unidentified female” and “homicide” into the paper’s search box, bringing up dozens of hits. She added “Hidden Falls.” Still too many, all old cases. Had Frank mentioned a time frame? They’d spoken on the telephone a few days ago, and he hadn’t said anything then about another victim. She felt the wheels in her brain turning like rusty gears, not even engaged, just spinning furiously in neutral.

Maybe the Hidden Falls case was too recent to have made the papers. Then again, maybe it was just the booze talking, and there was no other victim except in Frank’s feverish imagination. He wasn’t usually like that. She’d never seen him drunk before, even when things were really bad. Maybe she had made a mistake in letting him go home instead of bringing him in, trying to sober him up. No, in the state he was in just now, that would have led to more complications. She would call him at the station first thing in the morning, get the whole story. Never mind the prospect that stretched before her, a long night of trying to force a second specter from her mind.

Nora was just about to switch off the laptop when her inbox suddenly flickered with half a dozen new messages. Her heart lifted at the sight of Cormac’s name, but it was a pleasure immediately dampened beneath a wave of remorse. She had promised to get in touch as soon as she arrived, and had completely forgotten. The message had been posted just after midnight Irish time. He must have sent it off before going to bed. She checked her watch. Just after daybreak in Ireland now, not a decent hour to call.

The subject read: Tune.No message, only an audio attachment. Opening it, she recognized Cormac’s flute instantly, hearing his breath in the low register that seemed to scour up dusky earth, and in soaring high notes that rang with the freshness of spring water and clear air. The music brought back that astonishing moment out on the bog only a few days ago when she knew all the way through to the center of her being that she loved him.

She hadn’t been sure for the longest time, and then suddenly it was a fact, a binary value that switched from zero to one in the space of a single heartbeat. The sound of the flute filled her ears, playing out all the fierce, secret relief she had felt at the sight of him that day on the bog. He would have come along on this journey, she was certain, had she given him the slightest encouragement. But for some reason she had resisted. She couldn’t ask him to follow her, not here, to this terrible place. At least he had not asked for an explanation. She wouldn’t have known how to answer, except to say that since Tríona’s death, things like honesty and integrity and decency seemed strange to her—suspect, almost. After all, there had been a time when she had believed that Peter Hallett possessed all those qualities. Sometimes it felt as if she’d lost the ability to distinguish truth from falsehood. The whole world seemed skewed off-center, and try as she might, she couldn’t manage to get it righted.