Chapter 15
“I’m Sam Flot, the aquarium director.” The rail-thin man in a suit extended a hand to the detectives as he hastened to where they waited by the ticket booth. “How can I help you, officers?”
“Is there somewhere we can talk?” Bel asked as she introduced herself with a firm handshake.
“My office.” Flot shook Olivia’s hand before retreating into the vast building back the way he came. “Is something wrong?”
“We just had some questions,” Bel said. “But we’d prefer to ask them in private since it’s related to an ongoing investigation.”
“Ongoing investigation?” The man glanced over his shoulder with saucer eyes. “You don’t mean…” He trailed off when he realized the case that he was about to mention was exactly what they meant. He grunted instead of finishing his sentence and picked up his speed until they arrived at his office.
“Can I get you anything to drink?” Flot gestured to the chairs opposite his desk as he shut the door behind them.
“No, thank you,” the women answered in unison.
“So, how can I help you?”
“Do you recognize these?” Bel slid a folder onto the desk and opened it to reveal the photos of the empty mermaid sculptures.
“Yeah, those are from the annual Mermaid Weeks we used to hold… wait, how do you have them?” Flot did a double-take.
“You’re certain these are yours?” Olivia asked. “Is there a possibility these glass sculptures merely look similar to yours?”
“No.” Flot’s voice was absolute. “I’ve worked here for twenty-five years.
Started at the ticket booth and worked my way up to director.
I’ve dedicated my entire career to this place.
It’s my home away from home, and these mermaids were custom-built and installed around the aquarium yearly, so trust me.
These are our glass sculptures. Where did you get them? ”
“The women found in the lake were embalmed inside these,” Bel answered. “Have you noticed any of these going missing over the past decade?”
“No.” Conviction rang true in the director’s voice. “We canceled Mermaid Week years ago, so we haven’t had use for them. They’ve been in storage ever since. I honestly forgot we had them.”
“If these were in storage here, then the killer’s probably an employee,” Olivia said. “We’ll need your employee list for the past ten years.”
“I’ll get that for you, but it’s not necessarily one of my employees,” Flot said.
“We held Mermaid Week every summer for years, so everyone from back then knew about these, and our storage isn’t exactly Fort Knox.
There’s only one entrance with a single camera covering the door, but as long as someone looks like they’re in uniform, security wouldn’t bat an eye.
We don’t worry since we store nothing important or valuable down there.
What’s the worst that can happen? Kids get some fish décor…
most of which is too big to fit in the average car? ”
“Or the stolen goods could turn a man into a serial killer,” Olivia said, her words flushing the man’s cheeks red.
“Can we take a look at your storage rooms?” Bel asked before his guilt ate him alive.
“Of course.” Sam Flot launched to his feet and practically fled his office, the detectives following as he weaved a path through the visitors down to the rear of the building.
“Conveniently located by the loading docks,” Bel said when they finally reached their destination.
“You saw that size-accurate blue whale replica hanging from the ceiling in the lobby, didn’t you?” Flot asked.
“Kind of hard to miss,” she answered.
“She’s a beauty, but she wasn’t always there,” Flot said.
“We occasionally redecorate, but we don’t throw out our custom pieces unless they’re damaged.
When shipments arrive, we transfer the crates from the trucks to the service elevators or the storage room…
which is right here.” He gestured to the single camera positioned above the wide double doors.
“That’s all the security we employ down here, but we never expected someone to rob us.
” He opened the door to reveal a massive room teeming with oversized wooden crates.
“Keep your head down, wear a hat and a shirt that resembles a uniform, and you could stroll right in here, put the crates on a dolly, and roll them to the loading dock without raising suspicions,” Olivia said.
“If the killer worked here, he’d know where the mermaids were stored, but if he didn’t, I doubt anyone would bother to interrupt his search.
” She looked to Flot for confirmation, and he nodded.
“A little patience, and our killer removed all those glass sculptures without ever tipping off security.”
“Which we know he is based on his meticulousness with the tattoos,” Bel said.
“We aren’t lax on security here.” Flot’s defensiveness bubbled over. “It’s just we’re more concerned with the health and safety of all our living fish, animals, and human visitors than with crates of decorations, no matter how custom they are.”
“That’s admirable,” Bel said, “but unfortunate for us. We’ll need this camera’s footage from the past ten years. Our killer most likely kept his head down so the camera wouldn’t pick him up, but you never know. People make mistakes.”
“I can’t give you that,” Flot said.
“We can get a warrant if your policy requires one,” Olivia said.
“No, it’s not that,” Flot said. “I can’t give them to you because we don’t have them. Our servers keep only three years’ worth of footage at a time. Every day, the system purges anything older than three years, so unless it happened recently, we won’t have the recordings.”
Bel cursed, any hope of uncovering their killer deleted along with the footage.
“The first mermaid was murdered a decade ago.” Olivia’s voice sagged with defeat. “I’m sure he moved the pieces out one at a time over a long period to avoid detection, but I don’t think he’d wait and risk his crimes on fate. He removed all the sculptures as soon as he could.”
“I’m sorry,” Flot said. “I wish I could be more help, but we’re just an aquarium—lots of field trips and families.
We don’t have protocols for thieves and murderers.
Most of the time, our security footage is used to locate lost kids, not help the police hunt down serial killers, and I didn’t know the mermaids were even missing until half an hour ago.
Canceling Mermaid Week was a painful decision, so we locked the memories down here and never looked back. ”
“What happened to make you cancel it?” Bel asked.
“There was… an accident,” Flot lied.
“What kind of accident?” Bel pushed.
“One we would rather forget.”
“What accident?” Olivia added her voice to the demand.
“We had a popular show where performers donned tails and seashell bras and swam in the tanks. They were lovely,” Flot relented, a reminiscent smile spreading across his lips.
“Really talented swimmers. Sometimes they performed a routine together, and at other times they swam with the fish. They were fan favorites with the little girls, and business boomed during Mermaid Week. We sold hundreds of tickets, photo ops, and toys. Food sales skyrocketed. Families loved the event, but eleven years ago, a performer stepped into the tank and slipped. She hit her head on the rocks before she fell into the water. Her blood floated everywhere, and we tried to get her out, but it happened so fast. She drowned before we reached her. Thankfully, it wasn’t during a show; otherwise, dozens of kids would’ve watched that, but there were enough people there to make her death a spectacle.
It was traumatizing to watch her drown, so we canceled Mermaid Week and never reinstated the tradition.
Ticket sales plummeted so drastically after her public death that we hemorrhaged money.
We’d broken ground on a second location, but the funds ran dry, so we were forced to abandon the unfinished project.
It was such a horrifying experience for everyone involved that we locked everything remotely related to mermaids in storage and pretended they never existed. ”
“A mermaid drowned in your tank?” Bel repeated as her stomach fell through her body, and her gaze snapped to Olivia’s. Her partner stared back at her with eyes so wide they might swallow the world, and they knew. That was it. That was the moment a serial killer had been born.
“Erik would’ve been a teenager when that happened,” Olivia whispered. “Watching a death like that changes a person, especially someone so young.”
“Whether it was him or someone else, this has to be it,” Bel said. “This is why those girls were hidden in the lake.”
“Do you have a list of who was there that day?” Olivia asked the director.
“The police report might,” Flot said. “If they were interviewed, of course. Some fled the scene as soon as it happened. I think some people… they had their kids with them. It was the worst day of our lives, and plenty of the witnesses ran. I couldn’t tell you who all saw her die.
It wasn’t during a show, so we didn’t sell any tickets, but anyone who had a day or season pass could’ve been there. ”
“Is there any chance that Erik Prince was there?” Bel asked, vibrating with hope. They were so close to finding their smoking gun.
“It’s very likely,” Sam Flot said. “Prince & Sons does all our signs.”
“Every lead brings us back to Erik Prince,” Olivia said as the duo wove through the visitors, their feet carrying them as fast as they dared through a crowded building filled with easily spooked occupants. “Yet, we can’t find one piece of concrete evidence.”