Jason followed.
A small entry hall with a boarded-up ticket kiosk opened onto a larger central room. In the wide doorway with its fake and chipped pillars sat an old-fashioned diving helmet perched on a pedestal as though someone had forgotten it on their way out of the lyceum.
Which was probably about right. Rexford had certainly experienced its share of looting and vandalism. The mystery was that it hadn’t been picked to its bones.
And speaking of bones…
“What the hell?” Jason murmured.
The lighter squares and rectangles on the floor spoke to exhibit cases safely removed to new and dryer locations. Embedded within the walls were what was left of four natural-history dioramas that must have been too complicated or too expensive to be relocated. Unfortunately, time, weather, and other predators had all but demolished the cases.
All that remained of the creatures within were bones and feathers scattered across peeling seascapes.
There was a sharp cracking sound as Kennedy put his foot through the floor. “Damn.” He called over his shoulder, “Watch where you’re walking. The floor is rotten in places.”
That was an understatement. In some places the floor was gone or was only represented by a few remaining floorboards. Through the gaps Jason could see only shining darkness. Water?
Their radios gave a burst of static as Gervase requested their status. Kennedy paused to reply, and Jason—his attention caught by an unnatural pattern in the blanket of dust—cautiously continued into the next room.
Were those boot prints? He wasn’t sure.
His nostrils were twitching at new and even stranger scents. Mold and decay and unidentifiable chemicals. Hopefully not some kind of poison gas. At this point, nothing would surprise him.
And a few feet farther on, any hope of confirming his suspicion of footprints was lost. The floor was covered with leaves and twigs and dirt thanks to a giant hole in the roof. In fact, a large tree branch had fallen into the room.
The leaves on the branches were green, so this latest destruction was fairly recent.
He could hear Kennedy talking from across the hall. Jason looked around himself. Not including the giant branch filling the middle of the space, this room was also empty, but the walls were studded with what appeared to be a variety of ferocious-looking jaws. Shark jaws?
All those rows of enormous teeth were disturbing. At least to someone who spent as much time surfing and diving as Jason. Not that he didn’t know he was sharing the ocean, but somehow…
“West?” Kennedy called.
“In here.”
He realized what he had mistaken for a square shadow on the wall was actually another doorway. Or, more exactly, the square entrance into what appeared to be a small antechamber. Jason walked toward it.
The sickly smell of decay and rot were much stronger in this part of the building. His stomach churned with a mix of unease and distaste.
Without the flood of natural light supplied by the giant hole in the roof, it was harder to see more than a few steps ahead. Jason could just make out what looked like one exhibit case. A long, narrow glass box that reminded him suddenly and unnervingly of a coffin.
He heard Kennedy’s footsteps approaching.
He stepped forward, feeling drawn toward the case, unable to tear his gaze from the dark misshapen thing lying inside on folds of blue material.
He gazed down through the grimy glass. Peered more closely, trying to make sense of what he saw. His heart seemed to stop in his chest.
“Kennedy?” His voice sounded weird. He felt almost light-headed, unable to tear his gaze away.
“What have you got?”
“I don’t…”
It was probably about six feet long. Most of it was tail. A fish tail with scales. The other half appeared to be human, but something terrible had happened to it—to her. Her flesh had been dried and blackened until it had shriveled like leather. It almost had a fuzzy look to it, but maybe that was dust. Though how could that much dust have collected so quickly? Her hair was waist long and coarse, yellow-gray in color, her arms with those strange misshapen hands were outstretched as though she had died in agony, and the expression on her face—could you call those bared jagged teeth and subhuman features a face really?—supported that impression.
“West?” Kennedy said in a very different voice. “What’s the matter?”
“God. God.” Jason threw Kennedy a horrified look. “Is that…”
Kennedy was staring at the contents of the case too. He shook his head. As if he didn’t know, or it wasn’t what Jason thought it was?
Because Jason wasn’t sure what he thought it was. Something dead. Something mummified. Something ghastly.
“It can’t be,” he breathed, leaning closer. “But then what is that?”
To his astonishment, Kennedy suddenly laughed. Jason straightened, stared at him. Despite the gloom, Kennedy’s eyes were glittering points of blue, lit with genuine amusement.
“Unless I miss my guess,” he said, “that’s a Fiji Mermaid.”
Chapter Eight
“A…”
“Yeah. Look at the head. That’s a monkey with what looks like a horse’s tail glued to it.”
Jason looked again. Really looked this time. Relief washed through him.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he muttered. Had he not been a thirty-three-year-old man—and an FBI agent to boot—he’d probably have been blushing. What the hell had he thought? That it was a real mermaid?
No. He had been hanging around Kennedy too long. He had imagined something much worse, something much more horrific. That this was Rebecca and her killer had mutilated her and somehow transformed her into this monstrosity.
And monstrosity was the right word. Jason had never seen a Fiji or Feejee Mermaid before, but he’d heard of them, knew that they had once been common features in nineteenth century sideshows. The mummified “mermaids” were said to be a traditional art form perfected by fishermen in Japan and the East Indies who constructed faux sea creatures by stitching the upper bodies of juvenile apes onto the bodies of fish. One theory was they were created for use in religious ceremonies, but most likely they were manufactured as curiosities, gruesome souvenirs hocked to western adventurers and explorers to amaze and confound the folks back home.
Most of the tail of this one was only a skeletal outline, the scales eaten by mice, some of their skeletons lying dead in the case too.
“I’m glad I didn’t have lunch.” Jason couldn’t look Kennedy in the face. “I’m not sure I’ll have dinner.” He finally risked a glance, and Kennedy’s eyes met his. “Ever again.”
Kennedy grinned. “You’re too sensitive for this line of work, West.”
Jason was reminded of Boxner’s sarcastic “the sensitive artiste.” The difference here was Kennedy was joking. There was no malice, no underlying insult. Kennedy could tease him like this because he didn’t think for a minute Jason was too sensitive for the job. He might have other reservations about Jason, but sensitivity levels—whatever those might mean—were not a factor.
“Yeah, well.” Jason was still feeling sheepish.
“I thought you were the expert on museums?”
“Museums. Not…House of Horrors.” Jason made a face. Kennedy laughed again. He had a nice laugh, deep and good-natured. Startlingly attractive.
“Houses of what was that?”
Was Kennedy actually joking with him? Jason was so surprised he didn’t have a reply.
Kennedy was chuckling softly as he moved away, leaving the antechamber. He edged around the fallen branch. “Did you check this other room?”
“I didn’t realize there was another room.” Jason continued to study the mermaid for another second or two.