Chapter 13
“A couple kissing?” Olivia’s annoyed tone filled the car. “You slammed on the brakes for—wait…” She turned her wide eyes on Bel before practically breaking her neck to peer back out the window. “That’s Erik… and Ondine. You don’t think…?”
“That Ariella caught her boyfriend and her best friend cheating with each other, and they killed her in the heat of the moment?” Bel finished the question for her.
“The burial site was a beautiful resting place, suggesting that her killers either cared for her or felt guilty about her murder. Erik and Ondine fit both theories.”
“Erik certainly has the strength and hand size to strangle a woman,” Olivia said. “Plus, Ariella was so worried about disappointing her parents that she asked her friend and boyfriend to fake date so they could hang out without scrutiny. Maybe it wasn’t so fake after all.”
“The police break up the party, and Ariella disappears,” Bel said as the real-life Erik and Ondine vanished down the street, and the honking car behind them urged her to continue to the smoothie shop.
“Erik and Ondine assume she ran home before her parents realized she was missing, and with their judgment impaired by the alcohol, they escape into the trees to hook up.”
“Only Ariella hadn’t left.” Olivia jumped out of the SUV and followed Bel into the cafe.
“She was worried her friends had been arrested, so she searched for them only to get an eyeful of her best friend naked with her boyfriend. She came from a conservative household. It stands to reason that she was a ‘wait until marriage’ type. Maybe Erik got sick of waiting and hoped he could have the best of both worlds.”
“The girlfriend and the casual sex.” Bel ordered a large tropical smoothie and waited for Olivia to order her strawberry before continuing. “And with Ariella out of the picture, he’s now free to enjoy both with Ondine.”
“But we only just found her body. She’s been a missing person, not a murder victim, for the past two months. Based on that kiss, those two aren’t afraid to be risqué in public. That’s not a good look for the boyfriend and best friend of a murdered girl.”
“This has probably been going on since the party,” Bel said. “But now that Ariella’s been found, Erik no longer has a girlfriend he needs to appear faithful to.”
“Or since they murdered her,” Olivia corrected. “I know not everyone is honorable, but most men wouldn’t instantly start sleeping with their girlfriend’s best friend right after she went missing. I saw Eamon after he thought you had died. He’d never survive losing you.”
“Not everyone is Eamon,” Bel said. “But you have a point. If Erik really loved Ariella and thought she was missing but alive, he’d do everything he could to find her. He’d wait. Men in love wait.”
“But men who already know their girlfriends are dead?”
“We need to get back to the station and look into him.” Bel started the car and sped out of the parking lot. “Specifically, what he’s been up to since Ariella went missing.”
“Wait,” Olivia blurted so loudly that Bel slammed on her brakes… again.
“What’s wrong?”
“Sorry, sorry, keep driving. I just remembered something.” Olivia dug her phone out of her pocket. They needed to get off the road before someone called 911 on the cops themselves. “Yes! Here it is. Look.” She shoved the phone into Bel’s face.
“I’m driving.” Bel swatted it away. “We’ve already been honked at twice.”
“The email from the funeral home,” Olivia explained, instead of showing her. “We were so focused on finding Ursa’s name on the former employee list that we didn’t dig into anyone else, but mentioning digging into Erik’s life felt familiar. I think he might be on the funeral home list.”
“He is? How?”
“Not as an employee. We asked for everyone who had access to their facilities and embalming knowledge, and they sent over ten years' worth of high school student visitors as well as employees. The Bajka High School has a program for juniors and seniors. They visit willing local businesses throughout the year. The point is to help students experience real-life jobs so they can decide what to major in. They spend the day at the business and work alongside them. Hold on… let me check… I can’t believe I missed this at first, but guess whose name is on the funeral home’s student list? ”
“Erik Prince?”
“The one and only. I didn’t think to study the high schoolers, but my subconscious must have latched onto his name when I scrolled through the documents.”
“But that list was connected to the mermaid case,” Bel said. “What does that have to do with Ariella? Erik is in college. He isn’t old enough to have killed all those sunken girls.”
“Yeah, you’re right…” Olivia cursed, her voice assuming an odd tone.
“What’s wrong?”
“We should call the high school and confirm this is the Erik Prince we’re thinking of.”
“Why?”
“Because his name isn’t on a recent list.” Olivia looked like she’d seen a ghost. “He’s included in a student tour from over ten years ago.”
“Ten years?” Bel repeated.
“Yeah… which means Erik isn’t nineteen. He’s late twenties.”
“We confirmed with both the high school and the funeral home.” Bel leaned over Griffin’s desk as she and her partner updated their boss.
“The Erik Prince on the student list is Ariella’s boyfriend.
He looks young, and because he was dating a nineteen-year-old, we assumed they were of similar ages, but the man is actually twenty-eight. ”
“A twenty-eight-year-old dating a teenager?” Griffin grimaced.
“Two teenagers,” Olivia corrected. “Based on the way he kissed Ondine this afternoon, they’re a couple.”
“It’s not illegal, but it’s also not a good look,” Griffin said. “Nine years isn’t a terrible age gap unless one of them is freshly legal.”
“I don’t like it,” Bel said, ignoring the fact that her age gap was thousands of years. At least she was a fully developed adult. “We also learned something else from the Funeral Home. Erik’s father owns a sign business, Prince & Sons. They’ve done all the home’s signs.”
“So Erik has spent a decent amount of time around the funeral home, including a tour day in high school detailing how to embalm?” Griffin asked.
“Add in the internet, and the young Mr. Prince would have an adequate idea of how to preserve the human body,” Bel said.
“Tattooing is also a young person’s passion,” Olivia added.
“The art form dates back to ancient civilizations, but it’s become mainstream over the past few years.
It’s transformed from something only gang members and prisoners had to something that working professionals spend thousands on.
The mermaid scales might point to a younger perpetrator. ”
“So, you think Erik is both our Mermaid Killer and Ariella’s murderer?” Griffin asked.
“We need more evidence, but why is he going after college-age girlfriends?” Olivia asked.
“Because he’s immature and creepy and prefers to trap young girls before they mature enough to realize they’re being manipulated,” Griffin said. “But I’m guessing you two have a different theory.”
“The mermaids are all young women of similar heights, builds, and hair color,” Bel said.
“College young, and college parties are the perfect hunting grounds. Drunk underage teens, half of whom are high. They wouldn’t remember a predator moving through the crowd, and even if they did, they wouldn’t want to out themselves for underage drinking or illegal drug consumption.
Either way, college parties create blind witnesses.
He could take any victim he liked, and no one would notice. He just needed a reason to be there.”
“So he dates teenage girls.” Griffin nodded as he caught on.
“He’s older, so he can lure them in with the promise of being the designated booze purchaser.
His girlfriends act as his ticket onto their campuses and his alibi, and when he takes a new mermaid from the parties, they’re women not connected to him or to this town. Nothing ties back to him.”
“Until Ariella,” Griffin said.
“She might have seen more than Erik and Ondine hooking up,” Olivia said. “With the police commotion, it was the perfect night to take a new mermaid. What if Ariella found him with his next victim, and he killed her to keep her quiet?”
“Which is why he’s dating the best friend.
” Griffin leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest as if they might protect him from his disgust. “He needs another teen girlfriend to get him into the college parties undetected. But does he have any other connections to either case? Tattoos might be the younger generation’s preferred form of self-expression, but is he tattooed?
Do we have any evidence besides your hunches? ”
“Evidence? No,” Bel said.
“Connection, yes,” Olivia finished for her. “Maren Fisher is one of the mermaid victims, and Erik went to college with her.”
“You think he’s been killing since college?” Griffin asked.
“It’s possible.” Bel shrugged. “Maybe the funeral home woke something in him.”
“Doesn’t explain the mermaid obsession, though.”
“It doesn’t explain a lot of things, but it’s the only theory we have.”
“It does explain why Ariella hid their relationship from her dad,” Griffin said.
“I understand some fathers are controlling, but based on everyone’s opinion of the Tritons, I couldn’t figure out why a girl who loved her father so much would be so afraid to confess she had a boyfriend, even if he was strict.
But now? Now it makes perfect sense. If I found out my nineteen-year-old was dating a man closing in on thirty, I’d be livid. ”