Chapter 18
“It’s Triton.” Bel slid into the driver’s seat so fast that the back of her skull bounced off the headrest as she slammed the door behind her. “I think Triton is our Mermaid Killer.”
“Ariella’s dad?” Olivia’s voice sounded through the cell connection. “What are you talking about?”
“He’s been drugging his wife.” Bel turned the key in the ignition as she recounted her eventful morning to her partner. “The high Ambien dose was to keep her oblivious, but it just might be how we catch him. I think he’s made his first mistake.”
“It can’t be him,” Olivia said. “He’s a family man.”
“So is Mr. Prince, and he was our main suspect.”
“Not like the Tritons. The Princes set my teeth on edge, but the Tritons felt like home. They seemed like decent people.”
“Then why is he dosing his wife with Ambien without her consent?” Bel asked.
“I don’t know… do we have proof?” her partner asked.
“In a Ziplock in my car.” She’d made sure to secure the pills before she left the residence. “It might not be him, but I’m heading to the aquarium to check how Triton acquired a uniform. Can you track his company down?” Bel texted her partner the business’ name.
“You got it,” Olivia said. “Let me know what you find.”
“Will do.” She hung up and increased her speed, making the long trip in record time.
“Detective Emerson,” Director Sam Flot greeted when she arrived. “What can I help… Is everything all right?” His line of questioning detoured the instant he read the urgency tensing her muscles.
“A man named Triton. Does he work here?” she asked.
“Triton?” Flot repeated. “Can’t say that sounds familiar. I can double-check our records to confirm, though...”
“His name wasn’t on the list you sent to the station,” Bel said.
“So why ask—?”
“Did you leave any names off?” Bel interrupted.
“Why would we do that?”
“To cover up a connection you couldn’t afford.”
“Detective, this is a family-friendly business. One that revolves around the care of innocent animals. What could you possibly think we’re trying to hide?”
“The mermaids were encased in your sculptures,” she said. “Maybe you realized they’d gone missing and are protecting the thief.”
“The performer’s drowning was incredibly traumatic, Detective. We locked everything that reminded us of Mermaid Week in storage and forgot about it. We aren’t hiding anything. Now, the list we sent you is an accurate documentation of everyone who’s worked here for the past decade.”
“It’s just that he had an aquarium maintenance uniform,” Bel said.
“Here, let me show you what he looks like.” She swiped through her phone and pulled up the news recording of the family’s press conference, but as she scrolled through the footage, she realized that Mr. Triton never once showed his face.
Impossible as it was, the man had managed to position himself so perfectly behind his wife that his every identifying feature was invisible to the cameras. He was present, yet he was a ghost.
“Detective, I have a busy day ahead of me.” Flot crossed his arms across his chest to drive home his point.
“Just two minutes, please.” Bel texted Griffin a 911 message asking for Triton’s driver’s license photo, and thankfully, her boss responded immediately. “Here.” She shoved the photo of the twenty-year-younger Mr. Triton at the director. “Him? Have you ever seen him?”
Flot grabbed her hand and pulled the phone closer to his face. “That’s Neal Flounders.”
“This is my victim, Ariella Triton’s father,” Bel corrected.
“No…” Flot dragged out the word. “That’s Flounders. He works in maintenance.”
“This man?” Bel asked, the pieces starting to find their way together in her mind. “He works here under the name Flounders.”
“What do you mean by ‘under’? That’s his name,” he said. “We run background checks on all our employees since kids visit here. Nothing was flagged.”
“And nothing was flagged when we ran Triton,” Bel said. Two IDs for the same man, but only one of them could be real… if either of them were. But to withstand a background check? She knew only one man who could pull off false identification so flawlessly.
“When did Flounders start working here?” she asked.
“Probably around ten years ago.” Sam Flot froze. “Right after the performer drowned.”
Bel’s heart faltered. A fake name and a new job after the mermaid’s death? That was why no one had caught on. He’d been two different people.
“Was he there when she drowned?” she asked, her spirit crossing its metaphorical fingers.
“I don’t know. A lot of people witnessed her death, and it was chaos for the following months.
We lost so many patrons and employees that we almost went bankrupt.
We managed to keep our doors open, but just barely.
It’s why we hired Flounders. We needed help after so many employees resigned, and he’s been here ever since.
We’ve never had any issues with him, and I honestly forget he even works here. He’s so quiet.”
“Is he here today?” Bel scanned the expansive lobby as if Triton might attack her out of nowhere.
“Should be.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“I need the security office.” Bel strode across the floor without waiting for his permission. She remembered where the room was. “We need to find him.”
“I’m sorry, Detective, but I’m not finding Flounders,” the security officer said after fifteen minutes of scanning the entire aquarium… twice. “I don’t think he’s here.”
“Did he come to work?” she asked.
“He’s on the schedule.”
“Then he’s here. Can you check again?”
“Sure.” The man restarted the search, enlarging the camera angles one at a time so they could scan them.
“What’s that?” Bel pointed to the small corner image on the main screen that displayed every angle in a massive grid. It was the only camera the officer never enlarged.
“That’s the addition that was abandoned after that performer died,” he answered.
“We lost so much money that construction halted, and it’s sat unused at the rear of our property ever since.
It’s been left exposed to the elements for so long that to revive the project would require a complete redo, so management opted to leave the structure locked up. ”
“It looks massive.” She leaned closer to the screen. “Can you enlarge the shot?”
The man obliged her request, and Bel did a double-take. “It’s huge… and almost done,” she whispered.
“The exterior, yeah.”
“When Sam Flot mentioned that you had broken ground on a second location, his wording implied that it was in its skeleton phase.”
“The interior was never finished, but most of the structure was completed. There are some holes, though, so the weather damage is undoubtedly unsalvageable.”
“Where is it?”
“There’s a drive north of the property that leads to it.
The original plan was to create a scenic road between the two buildings, lined by a park, picnic area, and playgrounds.
The idea was that visitors would start here in this building, then take their lunch breaks—weather permitting—out on the grounds before moving to the secondary building.
We’d split the animals by habitat, and the extra space would allow us to house a significantly larger, more diverse number of fish and animals, offer more shows, and host events.
After that performer died, though, we had to re-home some of our residents.
” His shoulders sagged at the admission.
“Having to ship our animals, who’d been here most of their lives, to other aquariums because we couldn’t afford their upkeep was heartbreaking. ”
“I can imagine,” Bel said. “What’s the security like over there?”
“Just this camera and the fence. No one goes there. Trust me, that’s a quick way to kill yourself.
Employees used to sneak out there to smoke on their breaks, but then one summer volunteer broke his leg.
Snapped it right in two, and he almost didn’t survive.
It was a weird accident based on where he was exploring, but still.
It scared people enough to permanently leave it alone.
Half of it is probably flooded by now, anyway. ”
“Flooded?” Bel almost choked on the realization. “Oh my god.” She fumbled for her phone as she backed away from the crumbling image on the screen. “Oh my god.”
“What’s wrong?” the guard asked, but she ignored him.
“Tell Director Flot not to confront Neal Flounders when you locate him. I don’t want him to know we’re coming for him. Today needs to be business as usual,” she said as she fled the security room, her feet slapping the tiles as she raced through the aquarium.
“I know where he kept them,” Bel said the second Olivia answered her call. “The mermaids. I figured it out.”
“Where?” her partner asked.
“Remember the abandoned construction Director Flot told us about? It’s not quite as unfinished as he let on.
A secluded building designed to hold water and sustain animal life…
I think Ondine might be there.” Bel launched into a quick recap of Mr. Triton’s convincing identity as Neal Flounders, their inability to locate him on the premises, and her discovery of a forgotten half-aquarium that wasn’t worth the effort or money required to properly secure the perimeter.
“Bel, don’t,” Olivia said the second she finished her monologue.
“Don’t what?”
“Drive there. I know you. You’re already halfway to that secondary location, aren’t you… Aren’t you?”
“Okay, yes, fine,” Bel growled into the phone as she slowed to a crawl, her SUV creeping through what should’ve been immaculately kept grounds but were now the tangled and unruly mess of an apocalypse.
“You know better than anyone what happens when women move to a secondary location.”
“That’s in kidnapping and murder cases. I’m just driving over there to take a look.”
“Not by yourself, you’re not,” Olivia said. “Stay where you are until I get there, and we’ll check it out together.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Bel…”