Page 55 of The Mermaid Murder

Her skin was stained in splotches of fuchsia, purple, and slate-blue-gray. She hadn’t been in the water long. She wasn’t puffy or bloated. She hadn’t decomposed a day, not in ten years. There’d been a smell, Jen Scott had told them, but it was from the flotsam tangled in her hair. She was perfect. And aside from the purple bruising, she looked as she had in the photo. In fact— I leaned closer— she was still wearing makeup.

Waterproof makeup. Inner Bitch had a knack for pointing out the obvious.

Her long, dark curls had dried since she’d been lying there. There were bits of seaweed in its tangles, along with minnows, crayfish, twigs, leaves. Her eyes were closed, her face relaxed, her mouth slightly open. There hadn’t been an autopsy yet, just the preliminary exam.

You gonna do the thing or what?

I ignored my inner voice and kept looking with my eyes. Her hands were purple, her knuckles looked like she’d been in a fistfight with a boulder.

Time is wasting. They’ll be back soon.

I dragged my gaze from Eva to the table beside her, where her silicone tail laid, zipper down, looking as lifeless without a mermaid inside as Eva’s body looked without Eva inside.

Then I closed my eyes and put my hand on her forearm. I flashed back to the tank, the ride-along, so it felt as if I was the mermaid, pounding on the glass while my lungs tried to tear through my chest. I yanked my hand free and sucked in a breath so deep it hurt.

“Shit, you didn’t touch her, did you?”

I turned to see that Mason had come back, but the pliable orderly was no longer with him. Instead, a black woman with close-cropped white hair and a matching lab coat was looking from me to the corpse in alarm. I didn’t know where Detective Scott was.

“Of course not,” I said. “I know better than that, I consult with our PD back home.”

“Binghamton,” the woman said, having been told by Mason, I presumed.

I nodded and offered a hand. “Rachel de Luca.”

“Mm.” She didn’t offer her name in return, but her badge did. Dr. Kay Sharpe, followed by 40% of the alphabet. She wasn’t looking at me, but scanning the room, the body, the tail. “You’ve seen what you needed to see?” She hadn’t come all the way in but was still standing near the door as if ready to hold it open for us to get the fuck out.

Instead of replying, I continued moving up the side of Eva’s table. I needed another moment to close my eyes and feel.

“Is it just me, or is her head misshapen?”

“Blunt force.”

“Is that what killed her?”

“I don’t think so. There’s no skull fracture. But I’ve only had her here for seven hours. Autopsy is scheduled for tomorrow morning, but the Detective in charge?—”

“Jen Scott,” I filled in, to show her I knew. “Mason had coffee with her earlier. We’re consulting on this, informally.”

“Yes, Detective Scott. She asked if I could do it tonight, so I’m here.” Her attitude had eased a little bit. “Do you want to observe?”

No, no, no, no, no.

“I wouldn’t know what I was observing,” I admitted. I knew a lot of things, but a doctor, I was not. Still, I wanted to get a little more. I felt in my belly that Eva had more say to me.

“Well, then, I need to get underway.” Dr. Sharpe opened the door.

“Sure. I just need to um…”

Pray! Inner bitch shouted.

I blinked. That wasn’t bad. “I’d like a moment to honor her spirit before I go.”

Frowning, Dr. Sharpe slid a questioning glance at Mason. “She native or something?”

“Just… deeply spiritual.”

“Deeply,” I agreed.

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