False Mermaid

From her reaction, Sarah Cates had been expecting this visit. “That body at Hidden Falls—it was Natalie, wasn’t it?” Frank nodded, and she rubbed her bare arms, as if suddenly chilled. “I’m not sure any of us knew her all that well. When we talked, it was mostly about rowing.”

“How often was she down here at the boathouse?”

“Every day, morning and evening, rain or shine, whenever the water was open. She was a serious rower.”

“Isn’t everyone here pretty serious?”

Sarah Cates smiled. “Yeah—but some more than others.”

“Natalie was wearing running clothes when she was found. Can you tell me anything about that?”

“She ran every day, in addition to rowing practice. Most of us do some sort of cross-training—it helps build endurance.”

Frank said: “The people at her job and the house where she lived didn’t seem to know a lot about her. I was wondering if we might check club records for anything that might shed some light on what was happening in her life around the time of the disappearance.”

“Not sure what the club records might tell you. All we keep is contact information and membership stuff, speed and distance records, and the daily logs.” She pointed to a book hanging from a hook near the open boathouse door. “Liability insurance requires them on club equipment and private boats. It’s a safety thing; if somebody checks a boat out and doesn’t check back in, we have to send out a search party. That’s just this month. All the older logs are upstairs. You’re welcome to have a look.”

She pointed to an open stairway that led to a loft on the second floor. Cordova took note of signs at the foot of the stairs that pointed the way to men’s and women’s locker rooms as they passed. “Would Natalie have kept a locker here?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you. Not being uncooperative, it’s just that we’re not too strict about lockers. They’re not assigned; you just bring a padlock if you want to use one. We don’t really keep track of them.”

As they continued upward, Frank glanced at the row of photographs that followed the staircase. The more recent images appeared in color; the older ones were black-and-white.

“Team pictures,” Sarah Cates confirmed. “All the way back to the twenties, when the club was men only. We’re still not terribly organized, but at least we operate a little less like a frat house now.”

“Would Natalie be in any of these pictures?”

“At least one, I think. They’re in chronological order, so if we start at the bottom and count back—here she is.”

The photo showed Natalie Russo in the front row. She was smaller, slighter than most of her teammates. Her fellow rowers, caught up in the spirit of camaraderie, had arms thrown around one another’s shoulders. He let his gaze rest on the blonde standing directly behind Natalie. The face was partially obscured by someone’s elbow, but he was almost certain he’d seen it somewhere before, in a different context. The feeling was vague, but insistent.

Sarah said: “You know, it’s funny; even though they’re taken at the start of each season, you can tell just by looking which teams are going to be the great ones—”

“And this bunch?” Cordova nodded to the photo before them.

“Our best women’s team ever. We could have sent at least four people to Olympic trials that year, but—”

Cordova prompted: “But what?”

“Natalie disappeared just before they were supposed to go.” Her lips pressed together in consternation. “Things sort of fell apart.”

The upstairs office was a jumble of loose paper and lost-and-found clothing. “Please excuse the mess,” Sarah Cates said. “The usual problem—no one’s really in charge. The office is always in chaos.” She hauled a stack of boxes out from under a table, and found the one that held logbooks for five years previous. Flipping through the pages, she said: “Like I said, Natalie was on the water pretty much every day, from the time the ice was out—she usually did morning and evening workouts, and lots of running in between.” She turned the heavy ledger to face him.

Cordova peered at the handwritten pages of the log. Most names were illegible, except for all the repetitions of “N. Russo” in neat blue ballpoint. From June 3 onward, no “N. Russo” appeared in any column. Here one day, gone the next. Like we’ll all vanish some day, he thought, without so much as a ripple.He raised his eyes from the book. “She must have been good.”