Siren's Secret

Tillman gulped down a mouthful of doughnut in surprise. “No. I think that’s something you might have mentioned long before now.” He struggled to keep his censure mild. Carl was thirty years his senior and his dad’s right-hand man when he’d served as sheriff. When Dad died from a heart attack two years ago, Carl had been the one to break the news to him. And it was Carl’s suggestion that he come home and fill his father’s position until the next election.

Tillman had been torn. He loved being an investigator with the Mobile P.D. and thought he’d been falling in love with Marlena. But shortly before Dad died, she’d moved to Atlanta to further her interior design business. Mobile was plenty big enough; he had no intention of moving to Atlanta. Besides, after he’d taken her home the first time, he’d known it would never work. Mom had been tipsy and asked pointed questions about Marlena’s family pedigree, while Eddie had taken an immediate dislike to his girlfriend. “Bye-bye,” he kept telling Marlena, taking her arm and leading her to the door. In the end, Tillman knew his duty and he’d come home.

The doughnut settled heavy on his stomach and Tillman pushed the box in Carl’s direction. “Just how well did you know Jolene?”

“Not that good.” Carl held up a hand and rolled his eyes. “Never been a customer. Your dad and I went to her place a time or two over the years. Typical domestic violence stuff. Her latest man would beat her, but by the time we got there Jolene would refuse to press charges.” Carl ran his fingers through his close-cropped silver hair. “I felt sorry for her little ones.”

Tillman had his share of those calls when working the beat in Mobile. It was always the kids you remembered most. Scared and hopeless before they graduated elementary school.

“How much longer on that forensics lab report?” Carl asked.

“Another two weeks at the earliest.” Tillman filled him in on the blond hair discovery.

“Doubt much will come of that. Damn salt water kills everything.”

“But it could answer how the body got back on shore.” Tillman mulled over the hair. “It didn’t come from the teenagers that found her. They both had dark brown hair.”

“It’s possible someone else came across the victim before our lovebirds. She—or he—was unsure what was under those plastic bags and tore into it to look. When they saw what was inside they panicked and ran away.”

“I’ve called my old partner at Mobile P.D. to see if they have any missing person cases for known prostitutes. Just in case our killer has spread a wider net.”

Carl shook his head. “Something tells me our perp hasn’t stopped at two victims.” He clapped Tillman’s back. “Damn shame it’s happened on your watch.” Carl hesitated. “But at least your dad was spared this. He had enough on his plate without chasing a serial killer.”

Not to mention taking care of his wife, Tillman silently added. But if Dad didn’t want to break their family’s code of silence, then he wouldn’t, either.

“Here’s something I whittled for Eddie.” Carl set a three-inch wooden block on the desk.

Not another one, he inwardly groaned. Eddie’s room was overflowing with Carl’s creations. He opened a drawer and placed it in a bag filled with about twenty similar blocks. As his deputy meandered away, Tillman put in a call to Sam, his old partner, to talk things out.

“You’ve got a disaster brewing,” Sam commented. “Thought moving to Hicksville would be a bore. One more body surfaces and the FBI is on your doorstep. Good luck with that.”

Most law enforcement officers were territorial and hated outsiders coming in. But if the manpower would help catch a killer faster, he was all for it.

Tillman hung up and closed his eyes, wanting to erase the violent images. The investigation had been eating at him, long days and nights of nothing but working the case or helping out Mom and Eddie. Damn it, he was tired of living like a monk, all work and no play.

Unbidden, he pictured Shelly, the way her wet bathing suit had clung to her smoking body, the friendly green eyes and long hair plastered around her hips...a hot angel of deliverance.

Chapter 3

A mermaid—really? Can this be?

A creature of part land, part sea.

Mustn’t let a siren’s call

Make me falter, make me fall.

Melkie cruised the back roads, Rebel drooling and snorting by his side. He had no particular destination, but after hearing on the local television news that a second body had turned up on the beach, he’d been going increasingly mad at home. He kept waiting for a knock at the door, his paranoia growing with every second enclosed in the shotgun house.

How had that body gotten to the shore? That woman—that thing—must have put it there. Melkie found himself on a road leading to Murrell’s Point. Rounding a bend, he spotted half a dozen police and sheriff’s vehicles gathered on one side of the road.

Right there. That must be where they’d found it.

He was suffocating, the truck’s interior closing in on him. The old truck’s dying AC was no match against the pepper-hot heat. Maybe the cops were here waiting for him to return to the crime scene. They already knew he was the one. His life was over. He’d rot at Holman prison on death row. His breath came in painful, jagged spasms and his body knotted with tension.

The wet sensation of tongue on his right forearm broke through the paralysis. Rebel licked and whimpered, attuned to Melkie’s panic. The dog’s eyes, despite their disarming milky haze, pierced Melkie with pure love.

He caught his breath and patted Rebel’s hairless flesh. What would happen to his dog if they took him away? He had no friends or family. And everyone found Rebel repulsive, even though he was worth more than the rest of that sorry-assed lot of humanity.

Melkie turned his head from the cops and kept his eyes focused on the road ahead. The azure-blue of the sky met the gray-blue of ocean in a horizontal line. The moment passed, and he looked out the rearview mirror at the uniformed police scouring the area.

Fucking pigs. Where were they when he was getting punched around as a kid?

The familiar rage tamped down on the residual panic.

“How about you and me getting a little treat?” he asked Rebel, who yipped in excitement.

He pulled into the drive-through at the hamburger shack in town and ordered cheeseburgers and fries for both of them, plus a chocolate milkshake for himself. The fat-and-sugar rush sated his gnawing anxiety. Why had he been so freaked out? There was nothing that could tie him to the murders. He was safe.

He was contentedly gulping the last of his shake when a purple-and-pink sign slammed into his consciousness.

The Mermaid’s Hair Lair.

What the hell?

Mermaid. The word was a red neon light burning in his brain.

He’d lived here all his life, been down this main street forever, but had never paid much attention to the beauty parlor or the large water fountain in the court square with a figure of a mermaid sculpted in copper.

The image of the thing in the water arose. Melkie slammed on his brakes and parked at the first empty spot. Rebel gazed at him quizzically, panting onion breath.

Wouldn’t hurt to look in the window. Melkie put a leash on Rebel and knelt down to whisper. “We’ll just walk real casual-like, okay?” He stood, took a deep breath and sauntered by the shop. The ever-present smell of bilge and shucked oysters assaulted his nose.

In the salon window he saw old ladies in chairs, gray hair tightly bound in perm rollers, with bubble dryers over them, a few younger clientele getting bleach jobs. The interior was painted in shades of coral, with paintings of mermaids hung all over the walls.

He knew just how it would smell, the stinky ammonia fumes and peroxide in the air so strong it would make your eyes water. His stomach rumbled and he was back in that dumpy house, Mom and her whore friends dyeing each other’s hair and preparing for the night’s work.

“There’s little Melkie,” one of them would coo, beckoning him over with long red nails.

His face aflame, he’d have to go into the gaggle of whores. Nine years old and the stupid bitches would pull down his shorts and giggle.

“Let me feel that cute little pecker.” They’d grab him and fondle and laugh at the predictable response.

Especially dear old Mom.

She’d refused to allow him to cut his hair. She and her posse of bitches teased him about his thick, wavy hair and would put rollers in it and paint his face. A few years later he decided it was worth the ass whupping to disobey Mom and cut it short.

Even now, the memories churned his stomach. That cheeseburger wasn’t such a hot idea, after all.