Fish Out of Water

chapter One

The Beginning and The End of Days


Day One

Mermaids don’t wear nicotine patches. They don’t drink Southern Comfort from a hip flask, inhale Twinkies or watch Dr Phil. Mermaids don’t pack heat. And mermaids definitely don’t get their hearts broken by tattooed guys who look like pirates. In fact, mermaids have always been kinda down on pirates... but that’s another story. The cardinal rule is this: mermaids don’t live in bone-dry frontier towns. Ever.

But here’s the thing. Me, I don’t leave home without my patches, hip flask and Glock. My last moment of true moderation was back in kindergarten, when I stopped myself from using my awesome strength to rip Jamie Kennedy’s pecker off when he waved it at Julie Casey in the bathroom and made her cry. And don’t even start me on my penchant for pirates.

But I am, in fact, a mermaid. So go figure.

Well, technically, Mom’s folks call themselves Aegirans, and they don’t sprout tails, but they’re the closest thing to mermaids under the sea. And, as much as it used to hurt, I’m what they call a dirt-dweller, seeing as Mom was a runaway, Dad’s Sicilian and we live on The Land.

But not for long. You see, I’ve only got three weeks to live. Give or take.

As Aldus and I pulled up on Main Street and started to separate the spectators from their lascivious interest in their first honest-to-goodness corpse, I reminded myself that there was a little wriggle room. The Seer said I’ll die on my thirtieth birthday unless I can “change the course of destiny and save the world entire”.

Somehow I just don’t like my chances.

I’ve seen some wild stuff in my time and I know there are some things in life that just can’t be avoided. Death. Decay. The sticky fingers of destiny. Believe me, even if you could disrupt destiny, I’m not going to be the one to do it. I never even managed an A in math.

So, three weeks. And the countdown was ticking relentlessly in my brain.

I might be a cop, but I’m no Rambo. I’ve seen enough bodies to know being dead sucks. Just the thought of it makes me feel all tingly and need to take some deep breaths so I don’t have some girly meltdown. You see, I don’t cry. Not me. Too much depends on me being in control.

As I stopped Craig Henshaw from taking photos of the corpse with his iPhone, I reminded myself my own problems were pretty much beside the point. You know, mer-stuff. Impending death. Saving the world (entire). Only three things mattered right now.

One. I was staring at a spookily familiar dead blonde.

Two. I’d just taken a God-sized swig from my hip flask.

And three, I was wishing I’d worn a second nicotine patch for good measure, despite those warnings on the box about not double-patching.

“You know what really sucks?”

I could tell Aldus, the Sheriff and my boss, didn’t really care what I thought. He certainly didn’t care about the incessant ticking nagging at the back of my brain, counting down the seconds to my doom. Not because he was insensitive, but because he didn’t know. All Aldus knew was that it was Poker Night and it was as hot as death and he was wondering how the hell he was going to explain to the Dirtwater Beautification Committee why he had to put yellow tape around a dead blonde right at the “Welcome to Dirtwater” end of Main Street on the first night of the Dirt Wrestling Festival. My Mom, the Mayor, is also Chair of the Beautification Committee, and he’s been trying to get into her pants for twelve years.

Ever since my Dad, his best friend, got locked up in the county jail.

Some of which probably explains why he forced out a grunt of interest. “Wha’?”

I looked again at the blonde, her perfect tresses the color of moonbeams, and shook my head. Clucked my tongue a couple of times. “Highlights like that don’t come cheap.”

Aldus shot me a sidelong look that could’ve snap-chilled a beer. I knew what he was thinking: Chick cops, worrying more about hair stuff than the stiff. But he was wrong. My mouth was all gummy and my tummy was doing cartwheels. I looked again at the dead girl and realized I was going to dream about her for longer than Aldus would even remember her face, shocked and frozen in a moment of violence.

Well, for three weeks, at least.

Tick, tick, tick.

I’d been thinking a lot lately. Was this my last cookie? Was this the last time I’d hear Livin’ on a Prayer? And looking at this beautiful blonde that someone cut down like a sapling, I was wondering if this was my last corpse. And whether I had enough time to work out who messed with her. And make them sorry. ’Cause no-one’s more powerless than dead people. It might sound crazy, but dead people make me feel, well… protective.

Aldus crouched down again on the still-warm asphalt, poking lazily at the corpse. “Okay, so the find got rung in ‘bout twenty minutes ago. Coupla farm boys making their way over to the dirt wrestling. One of them stepped on her—”

He pointed matter-of-factly to the muddy size nine imprint on the white denim of her jeans. As he did, a quick buzz of electricity pinged me, making the hair on my arms stand to attention and a shiver of something no good chase scratchy fingers down my spine.

“Felt terrible, of course. Place is pretty busy tonight so she can’t have been here long.”

I looked around at Main Street. It was nine pm on a Saturday and even though something about the blue-gray quality of the darkness was tap-dancing on my danger radar for reasons I couldn’t quite pin down, I could only see three people on the entire street now the scene was cleared. Two were weaving drunkenly in our direction from The Dirty Boar. One was taking a leak against a sign: Welcome to Dirtwater – lotsa dirt, not so much water.

I tried to shake off the thick tendrils of trepidation that had stuck fast to my uniform and swivelled in a circle, raising an eyebrow at Aldus. Yeah, real busy.

“Okay, smartass. Busy for Dirtwater.” Aldus scrunched his smooth, full-moon face unhappily as he looked our blonde up and down again. She was lying outside the Dirtwater Convenience Store, the one that never opens after 4:30 pm, and one door down from the laundromat: Dirty Deeds. For the five millionth time in my life, I wondered why everything in this godforsaken town was named after dirt. Great way to attract sightseers.

The girl looked a few years younger than me, maybe 25. And she had the kind of beautiful, never-gonna-be-lined face used by anti-wrinkle cream companies to sell insecurity to fifty-year-old women. Her head lay slightly askew on her neck, an angle you’d never quite pull off alive. A trace of purple outlined her full lips. A pair of wild blue eyes stared upwards to infinity. And, because of what I am, I could smell it too. The smoky stench of death.

I crouched down and laid a hand on her forearm, expecting the usual chill but registering that she was even colder than I’d expected. Must have been here longer than we’d thought.

Looking at her, touching her, thinking about her deadness, my brain filled up, thinking about my responsibilities. I felt the sweat start to bead on my lip again and straightened up. Spots jangled in front of my eyes and the tendons at the back of my knees danced a mini hula. By the Goddess, only three weeks. Who was gonna take care of things when I was gone?

I took a deep breath and said it internally like the yogi taught me:

I embrace my fate and welcome each moment until my end.

“You still doin’ that hippy crap?” Aldus is deeply suspicious of meditation.

“You should try it sometime. Helps you find peace.”

“Whadda I need with peace?” He snorted in disgust. “And whadda you need with peace? Will it help you find a man? Pretty girl like you, goin’ on thirty. Saw this Oprah thing ‘bout these poor girls waited so long they had to freeze their e—”

“Aldus...”

“I’m just sayin’…”

“And I’m just not listening.”

Aldus started muttering under his breath as he stalked around the blonde, his dirty brown point-toed cowboy boots making crunchy noises on the road. “If the good Lord had meantcha to be peaceful, he wouldn’a made you Sicilian.”

He had a point. But you’ve got to find some way to manage the psychic burden of waiting to die. Young. And for me, stumbling into an Ashram in Goa after years of doing my best James Dean, meditation was it.

Aldus took up my previous position crouching by the blonde and ran one dirty finger through the pool of clear liquid she was lying in. “Still can’t work out what the hell she died of, or what this shit is.”

Jesus, talk about contaminating the crime scene. My boss in NYC would have relegated his ass to desk duty for a month for that kind of sloppiness.

“Tastes kind of salty.” Eat your heart out, Agatha Christie.

I joined him beside the girl and we spent a companionable moment sizing up the corpse, Aldus running his hands through his greased-back grey hair and me tearing at a fingernail with my teeth. I looked up at him from my notebook. “Hm. No obvious marks or wounds. ’Cept the shoe-print. No blood or other fluids. No weapon. Just a dead girl. Didn’t even take the hair.”

Aldus frowned, huffily muttering something about “too much goddam NCIS.”

He hated it when I did this. You know, police work.

I looked at our dead blonde again. Something was so definitely wrong with this picture. I felt it low and deep, someplace between my stomach and my heart. I hadn’t been home to Aegira for thirteen years, since I found out I was a dead woman walking. But I still knew what the blonde looked like. My intuition was telling me what she was, clear as a bell. And my intuition’s just about the only thing on earth I trust. I may be only half-Sicilian, but I got the suspicious part. In fact, I avoid thinking about what Dr Phil would make of my trust issues. But tonight my logic was waging war with my intuition, and my logic was winning.

First time for everything.

“Better call it in,” I offered as we stood up, by way of making up with Aldus. “And don’t worry.” I squeezed his shoulder, feeling a warm rush in my tummy as I touched this man, who’d given me a job when I’d needed so bad to come back home. “I’ll take the late shift.”

“Okay,” he agreed, with a relieved whoosh of spit and breath. “I’ll call Billy.”

I crouched again to look at the blonde, out of sight of Aldus’ Buick. My eyes swept the scene, trying to work out why my arm-hairs were going crazy. I started making notes in the little spiral notebook I carry in my pocket. No signs of a scuffle. No hand-bag, or any other accessories. No wedding band. No jewelry of any kind.

I stood back, sniffed the thick summer air, sized her up.

Tall, slim but broad-shouldered. Like a supermodel. I checked the bottom of her white, no-brand trainers. Size 10. Big feet. Her eyes were wide, almost in shock. And ice blue. Don’t get excited, I warned myself, balancing my book on my knee and rubbing my patch in hopes of cajoling it into releasing some more nicotine. Most blondes have blue eyes. It didn’t mean…

Something twitched in my consciousness again, and my hand slid off her face and down her shoulder to fall beside her, grazing the pool of liquid. Unconsciously, I brought a ragged fingernail to my mouth to chew and worry at. And then I tasted it. Aldus was right. Salty.

Shee-yit.

She was lying in a pool of saltwater.

In the middle of Dirtwater. The only settlement in the recorded history of humans settling anyplace that lays claim to no naturally occurring water of any kind. Salt or fresh. Even the town fountain, once a semi-ironic feature piece, dried up two years ago and has since stood empty. A bone-dry reminder that this place really is a hellhole.

So what was my beautiful blonde, clearly dead but with no apparent sign of injury, doing lying in a pool of seawater on its main street? I had a sick feeling it was a question to which I really needed to know the answer. And not just for the sake of the blonde.

Apart from Mom, I hadn’t seen a mermaid for thirteen years. So why would one turn up now, when I’ve only got three weeks left? It was just too neat. Only one way to know for sure.

My hand twitched nervously as it swept aside the white blonde hair on the left side of her cheek, and revealed her swan-like neck. Her skin was more golden than a Baywatch babe but cold as a popsicle on a summer day. And there it was. A tiny blue-green tattoo of a stylised fish.

Holy shit, she was a watch-keeper.

I could hear Aldus behind me, on the two-way to Billy, the local paramedic. Billy runs the funeral home as well, but no-one’s ever questioned the conflict of interest. He picks up Dirtwater’s bruised, battered and, ever so occasionally, dead, and takes them to the hospital, the funeral home or the morgue. Depending on the type and degree of their misfortune.

Aldus has loved Billy since Billy played ball for Dirtwater High a dozen years before, and I could tell he was thinking passing Blondie over to him might be his ticket back to the air-conditioned bliss of Boss Hadley’s poker room. I tried to tune Aldus out. My hands were shaking and my heart pounding as I contemplated it all.

A mermaid. A watch-keeper. On the main street of Dirtwater. Dead.

What the hell was she doing there? There’s never been a mermaid in Dirtwater. Talk about a fish out of water. So far out of water it’s not funny.

Well, correction. There’s never been a mermaid here apart from my Mom. And me.

Although technically I’m only half-mermaid.

“Travel well, little one,” I said, sweeping my fingers lightly over her eyelids and down her cheeks in the ancient farewell. “May the seas be gentle with your ship of sleep.”



My heart constricted and I felt out of breath. The spots before my eyes lengthened into jagged lines at the edges of my vision. Wow, go figure. Just when you’re sure you’ve seen it all and nothing can make you sad. I could hear Mom saying “Baby, your heart’s too big for this job.” Tell that to all the badasses I’d locked up, throwing away the key without a second thought.

I looked again at the blonde. Her stillness stopped me. It seemed small and selfish to think about my own impending fate, but I couldn’t stop myself. Three weeks. Tick, tick, tick…

Still, nothing an old friend wouldn’t fix.

I tapped a cigarette out of its packet and slid its clean, dry beauty between my lips.

It was like coming home. I’d been planning to clean up my body to prepare it for the hereafter – no Twinkies, no cigarettes. If I had to meet the Goddess, I didn’t want her seeing what a lousy job I did of looking after the fine body she gave me. For a start, I’d never seen another mermaid with cellulite. But I figured that was a technicality now. The quitting thing, I mean. Now I had something else to focus on for the next three weeks. I had to find out who hurt this Chosen One.

I lit up, looking for comfort as much as the dizzy hit that I knew was my pay-off for walking this carcinogenic tightrope.

I could always give up tomorrow.

“Wish some woman loved to suck on me that much,” a seedy voice behind me wheezed. I swivelled to see a face that was heading towards handsome in high school but never quite fulfilled its promise. Billy. By the Goddess, this day couldn’t get any worse.

“Hi Rania,” he oozed in that breathy drawl that some cheerleader back in the day had told him was sexy. He swayed closer to me so I could smell the sweet-sour cocktail of bad whiskey and bourbon chicken on his breath. I didn’t need to look into his puffy blue eyes to know he was looking at me the way he’d looked at me since we were in second grade together. Like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to catch me in a game of kiss chasey or pull my pigtails.

Even now that I didn’t have a pigtails.

“So what’s with the stiff? Aldus says we need an autopsy. Been trying to get Larry, but no luck. Done one of his disappearing acts. I guess I’ll take her to the morgue anyway, prep her, ’til we reach him.” Billy sidelines as a forensic assistant, helping out the coroner.

Damn. Last thing I needed was this doofus poking around my girl.

“Thanks Billy,” I purred, real friendly, to the background buzz of crickets and a lone generator. He grinned hopefully. “But you better not prep her tonight, huh? Federal law. Anyone who deals with a corpse under the influence is liable to hefty penalties.”

Billy licked his lips in a gesture that came off stomach-churningly sensuous. “Really?”

I nodded. “Oh yeah, man. And there’s something about this case.” I searched for the right word. “Something… fishy.”

The crickets buzzed. The generator groaned. I waited, to give him time to catch up.

Billy nodded, mentally watching the greenbacks fly out of his account.

“The feds are gonna be all over it. Might be best if you just keep her on ice. I’ll meet you at the morgue in the morning.”

Billy’s now glum face lit up, creasing into a toothy smile. “Tomorrow? Sunday?”

I nodded reluctantly. Here it comes.

That tongue reappeared to caress his lips. “Your Ma still do brownies Sunday mornin’?”

Men and their appetites. Every atom in me wanted to tell him to take his greedy little brownie-loving fingers and shove ’em where the sun don’t shine, but I needed him on my side.

“Sure. Leave Blondie alone tonight and there’ll be brownies in it for you tomorrow.”

Billy smiled and turned back to his rig to pop the gurney out before speeding off, leaving Aldus and me on Main Street looking at the slick stain where she’d been a moment before. Aldus cracked his knuckles enthusiastically and smiled hopefully, but I couldn’t shake the fog of wrong that was dogging me.

“I guess we’d better start canvassing,” I suggested to Aldus, who looked like a petulant twelve-year-old whose Mama’s told him he’s gotta do his homework before he goes to surf porn on the internet. Dr Phil would tell him to “muscle up.”

“Come on Aldus,” I offered heartily, punching him on the arm affectionately but forgetting my strength until he winced and rubbed the spot my fist had landed. “Remember I said I’ll take the late? But we have a dead girl here. Our first corpse in God knows how long.”

“Do you have to act so goddamn excited?” He sounded really petulant now. “Anyway, how bout old Mrs Kraus, down on Park and Lincoln last week? You forget already?”

“Buh-bow.” I made a noise like a game show buzzer signalling wrong answer. “Cardiac arrest. She was eighty-five. Her team lost the bridge final. She didn’t have the heart to go on.”

“Uncommon courage, my ass,” Aldus bitched. “Uncommon nagging more like. Shoulda given you the Medal of Pain-in-the-Ass, not the Medal of Freakin’ Valor.”

I laughed and scratched my arm, where the shiny, plastic scar ran from cuff to elbow.

Thing is, I agreed with him. No way am I brave. A year later and I still have nightmares about red-headed girls clutching smoking teddy bears.

Aldus swiftly changed tack, reminding me he wasn’t as clueless as he liked everyone to believe. “Ah, so okay, okay. What the hell else we gotta do this week, right? Only business lately’s been those crazy sonsabitches out at the old Hagan estate.”

“Technically,” I corrected him, “there are some pretty damn irritating daughtersabitches out there too.” We both sighed into the claggy heat of the Dirtwater night.

Aldus and I had really had it with the Children of the Apocalypse. “They aren’t the only ones sayin’ the world’s gonna end,” Aldus snorted. He was in his Buick, one leg propped on the dash, and I could see sock and way too much hairy white leg. “I know it’s hot as hell and feels like the end of the goddamn world, but I blame her.” He jabbed a finger at the radio, which he’d flicked onto NPR. Not that he’d ever admit to anyone else that he loved the hell out of what he called in company that liberal crap.

I tuned in. “…so I say it’s okay to look out for each other. To have a healthcare system that protects the vulnerable. To stop sending our kids off to die on foreign soil-”

Aldus flicked it off as I visualized Susan Murray, the stunning fifty-something blonde with the soft voice. He made a throaty tick that was hard to interpret. “Ever since that goddam woman came on the scene, the nutjobs have gone even crazier. ‘S the heat, y’know?”

I raised an eyebrow at him, and he went on.

“Makes people nuts. Horses and nutjobs, they can smell the change in the air.” He made that phlegmy tick again. “Maybe it is global warming or whatever the hell they call it. Whatever. But what I say is this. If we really are facing down maybe the first female President, then maybe the crazies are right. Maybe the world really is ending.” He paused for effect and I knew what was coming next. I’d heard it often enough. “No matter how good-lookin’ that goddam woman might be.”

I tried to make the right kind of pissed face, the one he would expect. But I wasn’t really listening. Mom says back in Aegira they’re spooked and predicting the end of the world too. It’s all to do with the royal line and this damn prophecy. Only one world can survive. Bloodtides. And all that. I guess that’s enough to spook anyone.

Me, I haven’t got enough headspace for anyone else’s prophecies. I’ve been living under the shadow of my own personal End of Days prediction for thirteen years now.

But, as the song says, I’ve only got myself to blame.

There’s one rule about visits to the Seer back in Aegira. And I had to break it.

Don’t ask about the appointed hour of your own death.

But hey, I was sixteen. And I didn’t think she’d really tell me.

I spent a long time after trying to convince myself it was all just so much horseshit. But then slowly, surely, all the rest of it came true. Dad went to jail. Queen Imd didn’t fall pregnant. And the biggest long shot of all: Faigerst really did ask Zali to the Evensong Ball.

And then I knew it for sure. I was screwed.

No-one had seen Blondie arrive. Or seen her die. Or even seen her dead (well, except for the guy who stepped on her, and he was feeling pretty sheepish about the whole thing really; Dirtwater folks are kinda genteel like that). It was the first night of the Dirt Wrestling Festival, and by nine most folks were at The Dirty Boar, well-lubricated with Dirty Dan’s home brew.

We only discovered two interesting things all night. First, the aquarium.

We found it stashed in some bushes near Blondie. Like a sliver of ocean in the Dirtwater desert. A half-full, reef-fish aquarium. Still with the fish in it. Six beautiful, multi-colored angels, swimming in a daze around their half-drained home. Big too. The aquarium, that is. And something else; one tiny little blue-green fish, barely noticeable, swimming innocently beside its magnificent cellmates.

Aldus decided immediately the aquarium had nothing to do with our girl. Despite the saltwater. “Too heavy,” he pronounced. “Skinny little thing’d never have lifted that sucker.”

I said nothing, but when he disappeared (thank God for that prostate or I’d never get any work done) I checked. And yep, I could lift it. I bet a million bucks Blondie could too.

I thought about that tiny blue fish. Maybe she hadn’t needed to lift it at all.

The other thing was the second stranger. Dan, who ran the Dirty Boar, had seen something out back, when he was banging the generator. A shadow. And a back, retreating. He remembered because he’d stood up quickly to get a look, and got this buzz in his ears. Worried his tinnitus was playing up again. Couldn’t say much. Tall, dark clothes. But he did say the guy moved like a boxer, light on his feet. He’d wondered if it was a wrestler, for the festival.

Missy Lovelace had seen something too, but was even less helpful. Admittedly, she was distracted and it had been hard to question her as she adjusted her bikini and mentally banked audience appreciation points. Man, dirt wrestling is just a whole other thing.

This town doesn’t really have a lot going for it, just people on their way somewhere else, or hiding out, or dropping out. So about ten years ago, the big men of Dirtwater started looking for a way to attract tourists. They thought mud wrestling had something going for it, but given that there wasn’t much water, there wasn’t much mud. So dirt-wrestling was born.

Anyway, I hit Missy up as she was preparing for her set, tugging on one improbable breast to bring it further into the action – a delicate task given that it already seemed unbelievable that you could expose that much breast without revealing nipple. Surely that little sucker was popping out any second. Watching Missy in her bikini, I cursed Mom’s sense of humor. I still couldn’t believe the theme for this year’s festival was Under The Sea.

I could hear the dull murmur of the crowd building, even from inside. The little dressing room was hot and impossibly wet. Missy told me she kept the shower running because the steam helped her false eyelashes stick. “It’s good to see you, Rania. Listen, I know I said it at the time, but I really appreciate…” Pause. Tug, tug on her bikini. “What you did, y’know.”

I tried not to look as she pulled on her bosom again. I shifted uncomfortably, as much at her words as at the whole bosom-fiddling thing. “It was nothing Missy, just part of the job.”

She shook her head adamantly and flashed me a Zoom-whitened smile. “No way, honey. You’re the best. I ain’t never seen nothin’ like the way you flew in there and pulled him offa me. And y’know? He ain’t bothered me since.” She looked at me for approval. “And y’know what? I did just what y’ said. Changed the locks n’all.”

I nodded, pleased Big Barry Buckford was leaving her alone. Missy and I had been in high school together. She was sweet but had a worse habit for ugly drunks than I did for pirates. I tried to do like Mom always said, just smile and say thanks. But I knew it was coming off like a grimace so I got down to business. “So, Missy. The guy Dan saw?”

“Yeah I saw him too. I was late, y’see.” She rolled her eyes, motioning to the star-spangled bikini. “Costume dramas. Y’know how it is.”

“Totally,” I lied. The room was even steamier than outside, the thick heat unbroken by the single, crippled fan sluicing through the air. It was making the shiny scar on my arm itch.

“How did you know it was a guy?” I doubted if Missy knew her own last name right now, she was so jangled about her upcoming performance.

“Dunno,” she offered unhelpfully. “But oh man, I knew. If there’s one thing I know, it’s guys. He looked hot too, y’know, from behind. Big. Yum. My kinda guy.” She chewed her lip and went on. “I was gonna call out to him, ask him if he was coming in, but my mouth got all gummy. Couldn’t talk. Nerves, I guess. You know, the competition.”

“I guess,” I agreed. “Anything else? What’d he look like?”

She shrugged.

“Would you know him if you saw him again?”

“Oh yeah, baby. Like I said, I know guys.” Another tug for good measure. I believed her. As she tugged some more, I was sure a thin pinkish-brown rim finally broke free of the bikini and I averted my eyes towards the shower before I threw up.

As I did, it happened.

The mildewy pink curtain billowed forward and a large shape crashed to the floor, right between Missy and me, wrapped in the voluminous plastic. Missy screamed.

My heart tapped out a tango and one hand went to my Glock without any conscious command as I tried to disentangle the curtain from the lumpy shape.

As I pulled it free, I had one of those moments. You know the ones. Where everything slows down and you know that for the rest of your life you’ll be able to describe it in vivid technicolor. Like the time I turned on the tv and saw that plane crashing into the towers.

He was almost supernaturally beautiful. And naked. A long trickle of thick red blood ran from the side of one temple down to a graceful jaw.

And he was lying on the floor half in and half out of Missy’s teeming shower.

Had he been there, in the shower, the whole time?

“Sweet Jesus,” Missy whistled, clearly impressed as she studied the region I was studiously avoiding. As beautiful as he was, it didn’t seem right to be copping an eyeful.

Especially when he seemed to be in pretty bad shape.

He was long and lean, dark blonde and strong like a runner. Golden hair glistened on his wet, brown body, but he was curled like a fetus and moaning softly. Something about the sight of him, which should have screamed “get the pervert outta here”, touched me right down inside. Right down in my belly. And lower. I wanted to cover him up. I wanted to help him. And some parts of me wanted to do other things, but I wasn’t giving them any airtime.

“This the guy?” I barked at Missy. She shook her head.

“Go call Billy,” I barked again and she scuttled out with a petulant sniff.

As she left, his eyes opened. And even through the disoriented blur, we had a moment. His eyes widened as they connected with mine and I felt my mouth swing open. I tore my hands away as though burned, but my eyes weren’t being torn anywhere. His were indigo, and their hot stare was like someone waving a searchlight in my face.

Before I could act, one strong brown hand reached up and circled my wrist like a manacle, pulling me forward onto his wet, naked chest. With the other hand, he pinned me against him, crushing the small of my back and mashing my breasts and tummy against the length of him as he spoke. “You.” It sounded like a command, but his voice was deep and dark, like Lucky Strikes and home-baked toffee. Like the most delicious bad boy you ever knew.

It was only a second or two, but I felt a sudden, unhelpful flush spread across my chest and my breath speed up as my brain struggled to catch up. Even through my dark denim jeans and the calico of my uniform shirt I could feel every wet bump and sinew of him. My legs had landed astride him, and my crotch was crushed against the hardness between his hips.

He leaned forward and moaned into my ear, and as he did my mouth grazed his jaw. I tasted salty blood and smelled sweat and strung-out, dirty man. A thousand butterflies danced down my spine and landed in the pit of my stomach. My nipples puckered involuntarily, and the ensuing flash of self-disgust galvanized me to action.

I arched back but he was not to be deterred. He lifted one long arm seamlessly to bring me closer again. As he did, I caught a glimpse of the red gold hair of his underarm, flat brown nipples and a whorl of hair south of his belly button that led…

I twisted off him and leaped up with the instinct born of a thousand karate classes, ramming the heel of one calf-high black boot into the most sensitive place on his chest.

I opened my mouth to say “hands up, a*shole”, but two things happened.

First, my mouth wouldn’t form the words, and second he collapsed back onto the linoleum floor as though his stealth attack on me, and my response, had sapped whatever strength he had. Those indigo eyes fluttered shut and he groaned softly.

Okay, so that wasn’t all.

Third, and worst of all, I knelt down to him again, removing my foot from its sensible resting place on his chest. My traitorous hand snaked out to stroke his red-gold hair, like some freakin’ Florence Nightingale. Luckily, my two-way barked at me. It was Aldus, and a welcome distraction. “Rania,” he croaked across the grainy line. “Whassup?”

“Ah…” I wasn’t sure where to start.

“Anything to do with the dead blonde and the fish?”

At the words, the beautiful man in my arms was suddenly taut, alert. “She’s dead?” His eyes lost the blur, and became almost black, locking onto mine like a gate clanging shut.

I spun away, needing some space to think, holding him as best as I could with one hand and holding the two-way and the Glock with the other. “You know her? The dead blonde?”

But before I could get an answer, he had jerked out of my arms with the strength of a boxer. He was up, and back in the shower. For a brief second, I got the full beauty of him, long and compact under the streaming water. He looked right into me as he opened his mouth and sung one low, perfect note. A note I knew too well from another time and a faraway place.

And then he was gone.

A tiny blue-green fish flapped frantically on the shower floor. And I was alone, with another mermaid puzzle to solve.


11:30pm

There are only two bars in Dirtwater. The Dirty Boar, and The End of Days, a fine establishment I prefer for three reasons. Firstly, it has this dark, ironic feel. Like a bad detective novel. Second, it’s one of the few places in town not named after dirt. Third, it’s where my good buddy (and the coroner) Larry Kramer likes to go to drop off the radar once in a while.

I needed a drink, but more importantly, I needed to find Larry. And given that he hadn’t been answering his cell phone all night, I was pretty sure I knew where to find him. When he goes AWOL, it’s usually because he’s fallen off the wagon.

And, for Larry, The End of Days is the softest place to fall.

I pushed through those swing doors that remind me of an old saloon, rubbing my stinging eyes and popping a No Doz on the way in. It wasn’t just the late call-out, the dead blonde and the naked babe, either. It was the dreams. Insomnia and crazy dreams are nothing new for me, but it wasn’t just the fire any more. It was other stuff. Stuff I can’t remember when I wake up, but that leaves me slick with sweat and panting. Like I’m being hunted.

I’ve been waking up wondering why I don’t get a different job.

Three weeks, I could do anything. I could do nothing.

I could do nothing on a beach. With a drink with an umbrella in it.

So why was I still working? And why the hell was I getting involved in something that was looking messier and messier by the minute?

I found Larry pouring drinks, and he looked happy rather than hammered. Marty, the usual barkeep, was kicking back, reading the sports section. “Dunno why you don’t give up the scalpel and admit you’ve found your true calling,” I offered as I slid up to the bar.

“Sweetheart,” he purred, ignoring Aldus for a moment and sliding a neat So’Co across the counter at me. “Guy like me working full time in a place like this? Ya think I’m in bad shape now? I’d be living under a bridge within two weeks.”

I nodded at the truth of it. Larry had been an army medic, and he’d done some bad war. Mostly, he was okay, and goddam if he was not the most gifted pathologist I’d ever seen in action. But sometimes it all crashed down on him. He turns off his cell, plays bartender.

Tonight I was in luck. Looked like I’d caught him at the sweet end of his bender.

Larry looked me up and down, sharp green eyes taking in blurry brown ones. “Ya look stressed.” He stretched well-muscled brown arms over his head in a faux warm-up and his worn plaid shirt rode up, exposing a waistline still remarkably trim for a guy nudging 65. “Wrestle?”

“Never get tired of getting whipped, hey?” I rolled up my sleeve as I lowered my aching back into one of the saddle-shaped seats and hooked my steel-capped boots over the footrest.

Aldus was standing there frowning so Larry motioned with his head to Marty. “Drink for the Sheriff, Marty m’boy.” He gave Aldus his handsome shark’s smile and Aldus stood back to watch, scratching his head, even though he’d seen this a thousand times. Even though I’d whipped his own sorry ass about four hundred times.

“You sure you ready?” I squeezed Larry’s big, dry hand, giving him a chance to back out.

“I’ve definitely gotcha this time,” Larry grunted at the force of my squeeze.

Dr Phil would tell him to “get real.”

It took four seconds, but for three I was letting him save face. I held his warm, strong grip in mine and barely exerted myself to bring his forearm parallel with the bar. “Say mercy.”

“Mercy,” he grunted again, smilingly. Then he reached over and chucked me under the chin. “That sure is some f*ckin’ party trick. Ever gonna tell me how ya do it?”

“Ever gonna tell me how you make a Dirtwater Dream?”

He threw his head back and laughed out loud, a sound like a hundred geese honking.

“No way, sister. That’s the only reason they let me play bar boy.”

“I guess the answer’s no then.”

Aldus broke our intimacy, shaking his head. “I’m off to the little boys’ room.”

“Knock yourself out,” I encouraged, pulling out a Marlboro and retrieving my beautiful zippo from its hidey-hole in my pants. Time for some me-time. Me and my perfect habit.

Larry raised an eyebrow.

Mermaids have no telepathic access to humans but I didn’t need it to see what the shrewd old geezer was thinking. After all, he was the one who’d suggested the patches.

I started flipping through my notebook. None of the neighboring counties had reported any missing persons matching the description of our Jane Doe. I thought again about that moonbeam hair, and reached up to tug my own short brunette mop.

That’s what happens when your mermaid mother mates with a Sicilian gangster.

I motioned at Marty with my eyes and the drink was in the glass before I spoke. Larry idled back over and I knew it was time to ask him the favor I’d come here for, but I couldn’t find the words. I mean, we’ve been friends a long time, and worked some tough cases together. So, sure enough, I’ve said a lot of strange things to Larry over the years. Things like:

You’ve got to find me some semen on this girl, or the a*shole’ll walk. And:

Go home, you’re drunk.

And even, once, when I found him sweaty and cowering in his basement:

Shush, you’re safe now, it’s over.

We’ve always been straight with each other.

But then, I’ve never had to say:

Larry, I need you to help me steal a body and carve it up. And oh yeah, she’s a mermaid.