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“Yeah. Look at the head. That’s a monkey with what looks like a horse’s tail glued to it.”
Jason looked again. Really looked this time. Relief washed through him.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he muttered. Had he not been a thirty-three-year-old man—and an FBI agent to boot—he’d probably have been blushing. What the hell had he thought? That it was a real mermaid?
No. He had been hanging around Kennedy too long. He had imagined something much worse, something much more horrific. That this was Rebecca and her killer had mutilated her and somehow transformed her into this monstrosity.
And monstrosity was the right word. Jason had never seen a Fiji or Feejee Mermaid before, but he’d heard of them, knew that they had once been common features in nineteenth century sideshows. The mummified “mermaids” were said to be a traditional art form perfected by fishermen in Japan and the East Indies who constructed faux sea creatures by stitching the upper bodies of juvenile apes onto the bodies of fish. One theory was they were created for use in religious ceremonies, but most likely they were manufactured as curiosities, gruesome souvenirs hocked to western adventurers and explorers to amaze and confound the folks back home.
Most of the tail of this one was only a skeletal outline, the scales eaten by mice, some of their skeletons lying dead in the case too.
“I’m glad I didn’t have lunch.” Jason couldn’t look Kennedy in the face. “I’m not sure I’ll have dinner.” He finally risked a glance, and Kennedy’s eyes met his. “Ever again.”
Kennedy grinned. “You’re too sensitive for this line of work, West.”
Jason was reminded of Boxner’s sarcastic “the sensitive artiste.” The difference here was Kennedy was joking. There was no malice, no underlying insult. Kennedy could tease him like this because he didn’t think for a minute Jason was too sensitive for the job. He might have other reservations about Jason, but sensitivity levels—whatever those might mean—were not a factor.
“Yeah, well.” Jason was still feeling sheepish.
“I thought you were the expert on museums?”
“Museums. Not…House of Horrors.” Jason made a face. Kennedy laughed again. He had a nice laugh, deep and good-natured. Startlingly attractive.
“Houses of what was that?”
Was Kennedy actually joking with him? Jason was so surprised he didn’t have a reply.
Kennedy was chuckling softly as he moved away, leaving the antechamber. He edged around the fallen branch. “Did you check this other room?”
“I didn’t realize there was another room.” Jason continued to study the mermaid for another second or two.
He turned and left the side chamber. There was no sign of Kennedy in the shark room. Or no. There he was, standing in the shadows of the doorway across the room.
Something about the way he stood there, motionless…
As Jason stared, Kennedy raised his radio and said in a flat voice, “Kennedy to Gervase. Come in.”
A metallic voice replied, “Gervase. Go ahead, Kennedy.”
“We’ve got her.”
Jason started forward.
“Alive?”
“Negative.”
Jason joined Kennedy in the entrance of the second antechamber.
“10-4. What’s your location?”
“The aquatic thing. Museum.”
“We’re on our way. Out.”
Jason gazed down at the nude female body dumped to the side of the doorway. Easy enough to miss if you weren’t checking inside each and every room.
It was puzzling to him this poor broken doll of a real-life girl seemed somehow less shocking than the Fiji Mermaid. Maybe because the mermaid had been utterly unexpected and this…sadly, this was not unexpected. As much as he had hoped—as they had all hoped—it would not turn out like this, it was what they had all feared from the start.
