Page 17 of The Mermaid Murder

“Shit. I need chocolate and caffeine.” She veered right, up to the campus cafe’s walk-thru window and ordered a mochaccino.

“It’s odd she didn’t know that in advance,” Zig said. “It would’ve been easy to check.”

“Sloppy work on her part, but listen,” Misty lowered her voice to a whisper while the equipment inside whirred, “she suspects Paul Quaid, has from the beginning.”

“The husband,” Zig said, and Misty nodded hard. “But they ruled him out.”

“She knows that, she was the cop on the case. But Zig, she must know something we don’t. She thinks there’s evidence in the cabin, but she can’t get a search warrant.”

The barista set her order on the counter. Misty ran her card, took her cup, and tasted her first sip.

“Plain coffee,” Zig said. “Black and bitter, just like me.”

Misty choke-laughed and spat chocolatey goodness into empty space. No casualties.

Zig rolled her eyes. She took her cup and ran her card, and they walked toward the emptiest spot with a bench, way off to the left under the willows. Misty sat down on the bench when they reached it, but Zig stood, pacing every now and then.

“That’s not all, Zig. Mackey has a photo of him and Eva, and he’s looking at her like he wants to, I don’t know, own her.”

Zig stopped pacing. “As in screw her?”

She nodded, tapping her phone to bring up the photo, then handed it to Zig. “See?”

“Ew.” She frowned and spread the photo bigger. “Was Earl Mackey secretly in lust with his mermaid?” she asked in her dulcet podcaster voice. “Was her marriage to another man more than he could take?”

“We need to find out whether that cop investigated Mackey at all. They seemed to be friends. But what was his alibi for the time when Eva disappeared?”

“Agree, agree.” Zig nodded hard and started pacing again. “But all that should be in the police reports, right? And that’s in progress.”

“Yeah.”

“So, then we keep digging into the husband.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, Zig, but we have to get a look inside that cabin. Detective Scott was adamant that if she could get in there, she could find proof.”

“It would be illegal,” Zig said.

“I know.”

“You’re dating a cop, though.”

“I know. I’ve been thinking about that.”

“And it would have to be this weekend, you know that too, right?”

“This weekend?” Misty asked.

“So, you’re okay with the breaking and entering, just not with the timing?”

“I—” Misty was dying to get inside the Quaid cabin. “Yeah. That’s exactly what I’m saying. Does it have to be this weekend?”

“It’s the weekend of the art show,” Zig said. “He goes every year.” She paced back and forth with her coffee in one hand, taking sips as if to fuel her thoughts. “It can’t be coincidence, can it? Them taking another look at the husband after all this time, on the tenth anniversary of her disappearance?”

“And just when we’ve launched the podcast,” Misty said. “It’s stirring all this up again, the cop said.”

“Our podcast is?” Zig stopped pacing and met Misty’s eyes.

Misty looked right back at her and grinned. “They were talking about it on campus radio this morning.”

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