“Sebastian.”
“Have you seen my student loans?”
Pop cleared his throat.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t joke about that.”
“It’s my default.”
“Yes, I know. Is Calvin home with you?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, you call me if you need anything.”
I nodded to myself. “I will. And Pop? You be careful too. Not that you’re in danger!” I quickly amended. “Just… I love you.”
“I love you too.”
I said good-bye after, turned on the television, and flopped back onto the bed on the opposite wall of Calvin’s tiny studio. From the murmur of the voices, some reality Bigfoot show was playing. Super exciting stuff. I crossed my arms behind my head and glared at the ceiling.
P.T. Barnum.
Phineas Taylor Barnum. Died in 1891, if memory served me right. A famous showman and businessman, known not only for his hoaxes, but the curious, the bizarre, and even his role in the high culture of opera. He founded the Barnum & Bailey Circus, which was what most people likely knew his name from, but he also had a museum here in New York City—Barnum’s American Museum—until it was destroyed in a devastating fire in 1865.
My breath caught.
The fire.
It started with a fire.
I sat straight up. Barnum’s museum was a tragic loss. His actors survived, but countless animals perished, and the artifacts had all been lost, from the bizarre and worthless to significant and priceless. It was even rumored that was where the Feejee Mermaid vanished.
“Fuck me!” I grabbed my phone and opened the web browser.
The shit I retained. I swear to God….
I opened a page that detailed the events of July 13, quotes from newspapers of the times discussing the tragedy in their dated and extravagant language. Sure enough, after several minutes of reading and swiping through some photographs of Barnum’s advertisements, I confirmed that he actually had live whales on display in the basement of the museum. When the fire started, scared staffers broke their tanks, hoping to douse the flames.
It didn’t work.
And the poor whales were left to slowly die.
He lost the whales, but not the mermaid.
Was that what the morning’s note was in regards to? Barnum’s whales that perished in the fire? Did it imply the most famous hoax of Barnum’s career, the mermaid that was thought lost forever, was still hanging around somewhere?
Prove the murder, win a mermaid!
I looked away from the phone and got to my feet. “Meredith Brown was a prime suspect two years ago in the murder of her teenage daughter,” I said out loud. “But lost DNA evidence and a shaky alibi saved her.” I shrugged. “I bet she was murdered to bring closure to her daughter. How am I supposed to prove Meredith was guilty when Calvin couldn’t?”
Well… there was one difference between Calvin and I. He had laws and legal tape to work around. I was just a nosy prick. But how could I prove she committed murder two years after the fact?
Was my creepy new stalker going to give me the Feejee Mermaid as a reward if I managed to do just that?
The only glaring clue I had still been overlooking was Jefferson. So like the little detective I seemed to think I was, I started searching the Internet again. I really should have done so sooner, too, because the answer was surprisingly easy to find. Some of the many lost items in Barnum’s fire had been wax figures of famous and notorious individuals—Jefferson Davis in petticoats included. Apparently someone had thought to save it by tossing it out a window. When the wax figure landed on the street, the public—for whom the Civil War was a fresh wound not hardly healed—hung it from a nearby lamppost.
