False Mermaid

Nora looked down at the faded chambray shirt.

“Tríona,” she murmured.

Her father flinched, and Nora felt a surge of regret. She hadn’t meant to say the name aloud. He shook his head and looked away. “I thought you were lost to us as well.”

“But now I’m found,” she said quietly. “The prodigal, returned.”

He offered a wan half smile, and Nora realized that this strange, sad welcome was more than she had hoped for, and probably far more than she deserved.

There was a noise from downstairs, the rustle of someone pushing through the back door. “That’s your mother home,” he said. “Shall we go down to her?”

14

Frank Cordova closed his trunk. He’d just wasted three fruitless hours at the courier service on West Seventh where Natalie Russo had worked, and another two at the nearby house she’d shared with some of her coworkers. The company had never contracted with Peter Hallett’s architectural firm, and not one of the current crop of bike messengers had ever known Natalie. To these kids, five years ago might as well have been ancient history. No one knew whether any of Natalie’s belongings remained at the house, a run-down side-by-side duplex that held an accumulation of many temporary lives.

He checked his watch as he left the messenger service. A quarter to seven, just enough time to make his meeting with the coach at the Twin Cities Rowing Club. Natalie’s emergency contact. He dropped down to Shepard Road at Randolph and sailed along the bluffs beyond Crosby Farm Park. The boathouse was on a private road that hairpinned from the top of the bluff down to the river’s edge. He parked along the service road and began to make his way down the steep incline. The road’s surface was loose gravel, and his leather-soled shoes weren’t suited to the terrain.

Nobody was around when he reached the boathouse, but the doors were open, and he scoped around inside. Some of the wall racks were empty; brightly colored sculls hung from others. Outside the open door stood matched pairs of fabric-and-metal slings, evidently waiting for the rowers to return. He heard a shout through a bullhorn, and turned to see a flotilla of long, narrow watercraft approaching from downriver. Some were rowed solo, some in pairs; one of the boats held a foursome stroking gracefully in unison. Oars lifted as the boats pulled in on both sides of the dock, and the rowers glanced at him as they lifted their lightweight sculls from the water and flipped them upside down onto the waiting stands. They began unscrewing the rigging hardware, swabbing the boats down with towels.

He approached the nearest sling. “I’m looking for Sarah Cates. She said I’d find her here after practice.”

The woman glanced up only briefly, eyes flicking to the badge he’d clipped to his belt. “She’ll be along in a minute. She was following in the launch.”

After all the rowers were in, a woman he gauged to be in her late thirties steered a motorized rowboat to the dock and raised a hand, signaling that she’d seen him. Not that hard to spot him, really—the only shirt and tie amid all the spandex. Sarah Cates had a lean, muscular body, and bronze skin that hinted at mixed origins like his own. Sunstreaks in her curly dark hair were evidence of hours spent out on the water. She tied up the launch and made her way up the dock. Cordova walked down to meet her.

“Ms. Cates—thanks for seeing me on short notice.”

“Sarah, please. No trouble at all. I’m here every day—when I’m not out rowing myself, I’m coaching the women’s team. We don’t have a coach at the moment, so we’re taking turns. Come on up.” Halfway to the boathouse, she turned and threw him a sideways glance. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

Cordova felt uneasy. He hadn’t been involved in the initial investigation of Natalie Russo’s disappearance, but then again, his memory seemed to be playing tricks on him recently. He shook his head. “Sorry—”

“You interviewed me—it was about three years ago.” Still didn’t register; he felt a little bewildered. She continued: “I found a body in the river. It’s okay. I know it’s impossible to remember everyone you talk to. You know, I’d always imagined that being a detective might be interesting, but after that—I certainly don’t envy you that part of the job. He was so tiny.”

At last Frank felt his memory kick in. The baby’s body had been discovered first; his mother turned up a mile downstream the next day. Witnesses said that she had cradled the newborn in her arms as she jumped from a bridge more than a hundred feet above the river. The memory of mother and child laid out side by side in the morgue had disturbed his dreams for a long time. “That was you?”

She nodded. “We meet again. And I’m guessing you’re here about another death.”

“I’m afraid so. How well did you know Natalie Russo?”