Erin Hart - False Mermaid

Miranda never mentioned that she was working at the Great Northern Trust Building at the time of Tríona Hallett’s murder. The actual event wasn’t until several months later, but she had been out doing the advance prep work in July. Nobody would have looked askance at her being in the neighborhood. But if she happened to see Tríona, or was actually following her, as Truman Stark claimed…

At ten past seven in the morning, Frank’s phone began to buzz. He dug through the blizzard of papers on his desk to find it. “Cordova here.”

“Holly Blume here, Detective. I think I have something you should see.”

Twenty minutes later, Frank was at the Herbarium, looking through the eyepiece of a microscope at the same shriveled shapes he’d seen at the crime lab.

“That’s the first of the two samples you brought me,” Holly said. “From the separate crime scenes. You wanted to know if we could say from the plant evidence whether any of the seeds or leaves in the two samples were from the same site—”

“And?”

“They are. I don’t know if you recognize those seeds—do you remember the plant Nora and I were talking about the last time you were here?”

“False mermaid—the seeds you identified from Tríona Hallett’s hair.”

“That’s right. Floerkea proserpinacoides. Both of the samples you brought me that day happened to contain Floerkea seeds. So did the third sample, the one you had sent over yesterday from the crime lab. Floerkea has some interesting and unusual properties. Part of the reason the species is so endangered here is that it produces very few seeds, usually only about four to twelve per stem. They’re quite large and heavy, for such a small plant, and they have no wings or hooks, or other features that help them disperse. In population terms, those things can pose a real problem. And to compound that, insects usually reject the seeds, because they contain toxic flavonol glycosides—in other words, they taste awful. What I’m trying to say is that Floerkea seeds don’t usually travel very far from their parent plant, not without help. I’m telling you all this as a prelude to the DNA results. I went down to the crime scene, collected additional samples for testing. To do the sort of test you needed, I first had to establish allele frequencies, which alleles are most common within the species, and which are more rare. Does that make sense so far?”

“I think so—go on.”

“I got some good data from a colleague who’s studied Floerkea in detail. The upshot is that the seeds from all three of your samples did come from the same parent plant. The DNA profiles are identical.”

Frank had to step back and think for a minute. This new evidence meant they could place Tríona Hallett, and the person who wore Harry Shaughnessy’s shoes, at Natalie Russo’s grave. It still didn’t tell them who’d killed Natalie, or Tríona, but it was a definite connection. Something to build upon, at long last.

“There was something else as well,” Holly said. “I don’t know if they showed you this at the crime lab.” She waved him over to an adjacent bench. “On this first scope, we’ve got Sample A—from the first crime scene sample you brought me.”

“The material combed from Tríona Hallett’s hair.”

“Next is Sample B, collected from your Hidden Falls crime scene. The third, C, is the most recent sample from the state crime lab, from the shoe treads. Take a look, and tell me what you see.”

Frank peered through each lens in turn. “They all look like the same sort of seed.”

“Yes—they’re all false mermaid. What else do you notice?”

“Samples A and C seem to be a slightly different color.”

“Very good. Some of the Floerkea seeds from your samples looked like they were coated in a foreign substance. I sent a few back to the crime lab, asked them to check. They just called back. That’s the second bit of information I have for you. The foreign substance turned out to be dried blood—”

“Which means the blood was fresh when the seeds were picked up. So whoever wore Harry Shaughnessy’s spare shoes could be a witness—or a killer.”

“You’re getting there, Detective—congratulations.”

“Thanks, Holly. I owe you for this. Big time.”

“Just doing my job. I’ll write up my results and get them over to you ASAP.”

Frank paused on his way out the door. “Can you hear that?”

Holly peered at him curiously. “Sorry—I don’t hear anything.”

“Listen carefully. It’s the sound of a cold case cracking wide open.”

Nora felt a moment of panic when the bell rang at half-past six. Cormac opened the door to Garrett Devaney, who proffered a bottle of red wine with an apologetic aside. “Only what was on offer at the pub, I’m afraid.”

“It’ll do nicely. Come in.” Cormac ushered Devaney and his daughter into the sitting room. The policeman’s face registered mild surprise when he saw Nora.

“Dr. Gavin,” he said. “Heard you were over in the States.”

“I just got back—and it’s Nora, please. This is my niece—”

“Éilis,” said Elizabeth. “Is mise Éilis.”

Nora had to mask her own surprise. She checked Devaney’s reaction. If he had heard anything official about a missing red-headed eleven-year-old, the policeman showed no sign of it, though he might have looked slightly askance at Elizabeth’s strange haircut.

“My daughter, Róisín,” he said.

Nora watched the two girls eye each other warily. How quickly children learned to take the measure of another person, she thought. Elizabeth seemed especially intrigued by the fact that Róisín carried her own fiddle case.

As they sat down to the table, Nora couldn’t help noticing the deference Garrett Devaney showed his daughter, in tiny, gentle ways—turning the spoon as he passed the potatoes, putting a word in her ear about which cut of the roast chicken might suit. Nora saw that Elizabeth couldn’t help noticing either.

After supper, they took advantage of the long summer daylight to walk over to Port na Rón, stopping at the top of the headland to enjoy the view. The evening was fine, and the rattle of the pebbles on the beach nearly drowned out the faint bluster of the wind. The two girls wandered off, leaving the adults at the top of the headland.

“I’m afraid we had an ulterior motive in asking you for dinner,” Nora said to Devaney. “I’ll just tell you straight out. The police may be looking for us—Elizabeth and me. She ran away from her father and stepmother when they arrived in Dublin on Friday—”

“Gave them the slip at the airport,” Cormac said. “Took a taxi straight to Nora’s apartment.”

“Only I wasn’t there; I’d gone back to the States last week. Fortunately, I have kind neighbors, who were able to look after her until I could fly over the next day.”

Devaney frowned. “Why did the child run away?”

Nora glanced at Cormac. “I think she found out about her mother. My sister Tríona was murdered—it happened five years ago. Elizabeth was too young to understand.”

“We think she may have discovered that her father is still the main suspect,” Cormac added.

Nora said: “He’s never been charged. Unfortunately, whenever we get a promising lead, it seems to evaporate. The point is that Elizabeth came to me for help, for protection. I can’t just let her go back—”

Cormac said: “There’s another possible wrinkle as well. Her father might claim that Nora abducted her. You see our predicament—”

Devaney rubbed his chin. “You haven’t spoken to anyone in the police over here?”

“I wasn’t sure what to do,” Nora said. “The detective working the case at home said he would contact Garda headquarters and Interpol, let them know he had a murder suspect on the loose over here. My brother-in-law’s name is Hallett, by the way—Peter Hallett.”