False Mermaid

Gazing at the motionless figure in the bed, Cormac felt the past spilling over him, a torrent of images and sensations that felt as if it might overwhelm and drown him: he saw a solitary boy walking along the sea road, repelling all disapproving or pitying looks with his invisible shield; he saw the row of syringes lined up on a metal tray, and the worn chaise where his mother rested, wrapped in her paisley shawl; he felt in his bones all those years of digging, searching for answers in the distant past; and through all of it, the urge to flee so strong again now that he could taste it in the back of his throat. He bowed his head and grasped the edge of the bed for support.

It would be a simple act, getting up from the chair and heading down the hallway, out the front door again. He closed his eyes and saw himself crossing the threshold in the hospital’s modern glass foyer, not stopping, not looking back, just walking until he disappeared down the road. Toward the airport. To Nora.

When he opened his eyes, Cormac discovered that his father’s hand had slid down the bedclothes and come to rest against his own. The old man’s flesh felt warm against his, and he realized it was their first physical contact in nearly thirty years. For some reason, he could not bear to pull his hand away. Perhaps one day the words might come. For now, all he had was the faint hope of yet another resurrection.

4

Frank Cordova stood next to his car in the parking lot of the medical examiner’s office. Nora Gavin’s eyes seemed to drill into him. “Who is Natalie Russo, Frank? You know something about her—please tell me.”

“I’ll let you have a look for yourself,” he said. He opened his car trunk and pulled a slender file from the carton of missing persons reports he’d been hauling around the past three days. He remembered his own first sight of Natalie, down at the river three days ago, and how he’d felt that distinctive cold trace down his neck, wondering if this girl’s death was somehow related to Tríona Hallett’s. Nora took the file and climbed into the passenger seat. He knew what she was looking for, because he’d searched for it himself: an overlapping circumstance, a possible proximity, some person or place that would connect the dead girl and Peter Hallett. But there was nothing like that in the file.

Natalie Russo had been a recent transplant to Saint Paul when she disappeared five years ago. She had a job as a bike messenger for a company whose regular client list included law firms, graphic designers, people whose incomes depended on speed. But she worked only part-time, to leave plenty of hours in the day for training. Rowing was definitely her priority. The emergency contact on her employment application was a coach from the Twin Cities Rowing Club, Sarah Cates. Nothing out of the ordinary the week she disappeared: pickups and deliveries for the usual clients, rowing practice, her morning run along the paths at Hidden Falls. On Friday, she didn’t show up for work or rowing practice, but no one realized anything was wrong until her bike was spotted in its customary place outside the rowing club. Her teammates had turned out to help with a foot search, but they found nothing. She was just gone.

Frank’s cell phone began to vibrate, and he glanced at the number. His partner, Karin Bledsoe. She had already called twice this morning, probably wondering where the hell he was. He shoved the phone back in his pocket. She would have her answer soon enough.

He glanced over at Nora, watching the way she flipped through the pages in the file, the way her thumbnail absently brushed against her lower lip as she read. He felt suddenly unnerved by that gesture, and all the thousand other things he’d tried so hard to forget. It was stupid, thinking he could handle being with her again, any better than he’d handled it the last time.

Last night had started out innocently enough. It was sickening, wondering what he’d said and done. There was no car parked in front of the carriage house the first time he drove past in the afternoon. Never mind that the apartment was on a narrow, one-way street where nobody just happened to drive by. He could have turned around then, gone home. Instead he’d gone to a bar down on Grand Avenue to grab some dinner. Then he’d started ordering tequila shots, trying to talk himself out of going past the carriage house again on his way home. By the time he went back, there was a rental car out front. If she’d only been inside the apartment, he’d have been spared any humiliation. If memory served, he hadn’t even managed to ring the bell. Just his luck that she’d been out, and found him on the doorstep as she came home. There was one small mercy—at least he hadn’t tried to drive.