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“Did she try to help him? The boy, I mean?” Despite my good relations with the merfolk, they weren’t always so sympathetic to the rest of us land dwellers.
Janeira wouldn’t have left Tyler to die on the rocks, but I couldn’t say the same for some of her coven.
Janeira shook her head. “There was no helping him, Maeve. He was gone the moment he hit the rocks.”
The breeze swiped at us a little harsher suddenly, and the hairs on my neck raised.
“You need to tell the police this,” I said.
Janeira swished her tail with a sudden fervour, making her bob a little higher above the waves.
“You know we don’t get involved in land-dweller affairs,” she said.
“I know that, but surely this is an exception?” I gestured wildly with my hands. “This is a murder, Jan. If you don’t care about the outcome, why are you telling me this?”
“Because what happened to that poor boy is unacceptable, but this is the extent of my help, I’m afraid.” Janeira ran her hand through the water to guide a small colourful fish on its way. “You know what will happen if your authorities learn we witnessed this. They will swarm this place in the name of their laws and we have been very clear about our stance on visitors lately.”
My heart raced, but I drew in some slow, salty breaths.
Getting frustrated with Janeira over this wouldn’t help matters. She was trying to protect her coven, and the whole reason they cordoned their island off to visitors was because of land-dweller behaviour.
Getting them involved wouldn’t help merfolk relations, but how was I supposed to prove that someone had murdered Tyler without the testimony of the people who had witnessed it?
“It’s important for us all, including the merfolk, that the police solve this mystery,” Janeira said. “I am no more comfortable that a murderer lives in our midst than you are. But our input would be of no help. We don’t know who killed this boy, only that he was.”
I balled up my sleeve in a fist.
How the hell was I supposed to go about this? Go to the chief and announce it was a murder with no proof?
No. The realisation finally sank into me. I would have to find the evidence myself.
I was no detective. All I had ever done when working for Nexus was retrieve the bodies and let the actual detectives figure out how they’d gotten there.
This situation was well beyond my area of expertise.
“I would have your word,” Janeira said. “That you won’t mention the merfolk to your authorities?”
“I promise I won’t say anything to them,” I said. “But… I’m not exactly qualified to figure this out.”
“Perhaps not in the eyes of the police,” Janeira said. “I think you’ll do a fine job.”
I pursed my lips. The merfolk didn’t have qualifications or courses. Instead, they taught their young their ways and once they had proved they could do it themselves, they were competent.
Although in this case, I was not qualified by either land-dweller standards or merfolk standards.
“Thank you,” I said. “For telling me this.”
She didn’t have to, after all.
Janeira’s eyes warmed, and she dipped her shoulders beneath the waves. “I wouldn’t have dared tell any other land dweller.”
Warmth glowed in my chest.
I couldn’t pretend I didn’t feel a little special about having this relationship with the merfolk. They didn’t like to mix with land dwellers, but I had played with the young mermaids in the sea since I could swim. For whatever reason, they had taken a liking to me.
“Well, what I really came here to ask you was if I could get the body out of merfolk waters. We will need a team to remove it,” I said.
“Of course.” Janeira waved her hand. “The sooner it’s out of here, the better.”
