False Mermaid

On the whole, things had been better since then, but lately Truman had been feeling a new restlessness in his blood, a dissatisfaction that hovered somewhere between an itch and an ache. It wouldn’t go away. Something inside him had changed. He used to look up to cops, study the way their handcuffs and holsters fit on their belts, how the uniforms made them look bigger, bulkier than they really were. He couldn’t recall the exact moment his attitude had begun to turn. He only noticed one day that he felt something new as he walked past a squad car on his way to work. He could feel the cops sizing him up, checking the security company patch on his shoulder, and exchanging a dismissive glance. Now, every time he passed a police car parked on the street outside the ramp, he was almost overcome with one desire: to reach in through the open window and haul them out, to wipe those smug looks from their faces.

He remembered how the bright beam had crossed the space number on the monitor upstairs, and then it struck him—114 was the same parking space where they’d found that girl, the redhead. He hadn’t known her name until he saw her picture on the TV news. His job might have been in danger if he’d said anything to the police. But he could have told them plenty. How he’d seen her—three and four times a week, all through that spring and summer. He could have told them how he’d watched her, even followed her outside sometimes, admiring the way her long hair seemed to float around her when the breeze came up. How he’d imagined all that beautiful hair spilling over him when he looked at the pictures he’d taped to the sloped ceiling above his bed. But the police had no need to know any of that. There was no way they were going to find out. Because if they did, all those private moments would be destroyed, and he could never let that happen.

10

Leaving the garage and heading back to the car, Nora walked along the south side of Mears Park. The square itself was shady this late in the afternoon, but yellow sunlight still glinted from the windows above the trees. The pavement radiated heat, and the air felt sticky. She wasn’t over the shock of returning home. All the wide streets, the broad-shouldered buildings still felt strange and unfamiliar.

Pedestrians crossed the square with their dogs, accompanied by classical music piping from speakers in the modern band shell. Suddenly the true purpose of the music dawned: it was not about offering pleasure to the masses, but about repelling young people. The whole proposition rested on a presumption that no self-respecting, rap-loving juvenile would be caught dead within earshot of Mozart. There was something a little sad about that.

Nora pictured the timeline tacked up on the wall in her apartment, with at least eight hours in Tríona’s last, fateful day still unaccounted for. Every minute of every hour was made up of so many intricate layers and intersections, places where one stream flowed into another. What were the chances that she was walking by something vitally important right now?

Her ears became attuned to the sound of running water, which came from the stream that cut across the park. It wasn’t a real stream, of course, but a fountain that tumbled through faux boulders and feathery native grasses. An artificial prairie creek in the heart of the city. She followed the water to the opposite side of the park and crossed the street, moving to sidestep a couple of teenage girls walking by a large plate glass window of an empty office space. As she passed them, one of the girls shouted, “Hey, Latrice, that was us on the TV!” She yanked at her friend’s arm, and Nora had to swerve to avoid a collision.

“No way,” Latrice said. But she stared through the glass where her friend was pointing. Nora couldn’t help being drawn in. The whole window became a video collage: multiple fast-motion images shot from above turned pedestrians into ants, and slow-motion, street-level video was interspersed with still photos.

The friend insisted. “I know what I saw.”

“You trippin’,” Latrice said. “I don’t see nothin’.”

“I’m tellin’ you, it was us,” her friend said again, annoyed. “There!” She yelped and smacked Latrice’s bare arm. “Right there! Told you I wasn’t lyin’.”

Latrice finally caught a glimpse of her larger-than-life self. “Aw man, that’s wack!” She started trying out a few dance moves. “Here’s Latrice, baby. For real. Come on, everybody, get a good look!”