Chapter 4: Chapter Four

The next morning was gray and cold as I left Ronnie’s house wearing a blue sweater and jeans. She was still sleeping when I walked down the stairs into the vet office full of rabbits someone had brought in from a farm. 

Jason, the receptionist for Ronnie’s legitimate dayside business, looked me over. He pulled me aside, close enough I could smell his aftershave, and went, “She’s been pretty bummed about Robbie. I hope you’re not here to—” 

I scoffed and rolled my eyes. 

“She’s a big girl, Jason. And what we did or didn’t do is our business,” I said. “I know you think this protective thing is charming, and it is in small doses. But I care about Ronnie too much to hurt her. You know that.” 

Poking him in the shoulder as I said the last few words, Jason flinched. 

“Sorry, jeez. Damn, Cass, you’ve always got monster claws. Do you file your nails like that intentionally?”

I flashed a grin at the receptionist as an older woman with a poodle came in through the front door. It was just enough of my pointed teeth to make him wonder what he’d seen. And if he thought my claws were bad now, he should see me in the water. 

“Take care, Jason,” I said and left with Tenebrae in tow. 

He waited until we were outside to speak, not that anyone would have understood him otherwise. 

“I do find him rather arrogant for presuming he had any right to speak to you about Ronnie’s escapades,” the otter said. 

I smiled. He waited until Jason was out of earshot before he spoke poorly of his conduct. That made me giggle. 

“You’re right, Ten. It was arrogant. Next time he does it, I’ll have to feed him to a shark,” I said. 

Tenebrae’s eyes lit up in a way that said he was worried about how serious I was. The Harbor Warden wasn’t a position that made me immune to the law. This was made especially apparent by the city’s top law enforcement officer forcing me into taking a case. 

“Would you take him to Kimeena?” my friend almost whispered. 

“She is my favorite great white, and I’m sure she’d make a meal out of Jason. He isn’t too big,” I laughed. 

We walked back over toward Moonstone’s, but instead of going in the front entrance, I moved back around the side and found a narrow set of concrete stairs that were more than a century old. Descending to the sublevel, I came to a blue wooden door with a small round mirror on the outside. 

It really was a pretty interesting locking mechanism. You looked in the mirror, and your face would appear as with any other reflective surface. But then your face would look left and right before asking a riddle. 

My reflection showed an alabaster woman with white stringy hair and eyes so pale they’d make a man wearing a fur coat shiver. Mermaid blood was a hell of an inheritance. 

“I hold the message you give me until wiped away. I cannot be shy because children stare at me all day. What am I?” my reflection asked in an uncanny tone. 

“You’re a chalkboard,” I said. 

Not mimicking me, my mirror image nodded, and I heard a lock disengage on the door, letting me into Dark Side of the Moon. 

Seven round tables surrounded by seven red stools filled most of the room. In the corner, two solitary bookshelves stood with titles ranging from “Moby Dick” to “The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou.” 

An ancient, squeaky black wooden floor engulfed all who tread upon it, marking my presence with typical noise as I walked across the room. Even Tenebrae’s weight was enough to make the floorboards squeak.  

The morning newspaper sat mostly folded on a wooden bar painted royal blue. I say mostly folded, because the bartender, Brendyn, stood reading the business section. The rest was stacked semi-neatly next to him. 

I plopped my ass on a blue stool across the bar from a man who’d spent a good chunk of his life in this building. He’d won a lottery many had entered through the centuries and somehow came out with his life intact and extended indefinitely. 

Brendyn’s hair was white like mine, and he kept it cut short. The cheeky bastard wore a stringy goatee that’d never managed to fill in across his three centuries of life. The bartender wore a leather vest with a red shirt underneath and only looked up from the paper when he’d finished his story on increased lobster regulations due to hypothetical right whale entanglements. 

“Morning, Cass. My boyfriend tells me you had a special visitor upstairs last night,” Brendyn said, sliding me the paper. 

I only wanted to see the front page, which contained an article on one girl being rescued after going missing from a pier for several hours, along with her brother who had yet to turn up. 

It seems the girl’s name was Tanya, and she didn’t remember anything about being snatched by krabbor in the mist, just 20 feet away from her parents. 

I’d wager the captain made a midnight call to Carmina, I thought. That witch would have been grumpy as fuck at having her dinner interrupted, but she probably stayed quiet and did her spells when she realized it was a kid. 

Carmina’s involvement with victims recovered by YARP was almost always sweet mercy. You didn’t go around pulling memories out of people’s heads without good reason. 

“Yeah, fucking city attorney wants me to look into his missing wife,” I said. 

Tenebrae climbed onto the stool next to me. 

“You take the case?” Brendyn asked. 

I nodded and sighed, flipping the paper over to start a story on a petition for Portland High School to change its mascot to a Kraken. 

If you’d ever seen one up close, you’d reconsider that, I thought, shaking my head. 

“No choice. The asshole threatened to send an animal control officer to confiscate Ten. So after you feed me a lovely breakfast, I’m off to Cape Elizabeth,” I said, putting the paper down. 

“Fucking politicians act more like sharks than your brethren under the waves,” Brendyn said, turning to head into the kitchen and grab my breakfast. 

I shook my head. 

“The ones with fins are easier for me to talk to,” I sighed, scratching my otter along his back. 

His eyes got that droopy look like they always did when Tenebrae was being scratched. 

“Sorry to cause you trouble,” he muttered when I stopped. 

“Don’t you talk like that. The city attorney is the one causing trouble. You’re just living, being my best friend,” I said. 

Brendyn returned with a plate of three giant blueberry muffins. He was kind of a blueberry enthusiast, even had a little greenhouse on the roof growing them year-round. 

The bartender watched me unwrap a muffin and hand it to Tenebrae, who took it with his fuzzy paws, devouring it piece by piece. 

“Shouldn’t he be on his back banging the muffin into his chest?” Brendyn joked. 

Ten stopped eating and treated our server to a very flat stare. 

“Oh shit. I always forget he can understand us. We can’t understand him.” 

I joined Ten in a flat stare as I unwrapped my first muffin by touch and then ate it, all the while looking right at the man across the bar from me. 

Assert dominance, I thought, taking each bite, chewing a bit with my mouth open so Brendyn saw my jagged teeth. 

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry,” he said, holding his hands up. “No need to get your knickers in a twist. So tell me more about this city attorney. He sounds like a right cunt.” 

I finished my muffin and disarmed the stare as Ten went back to eating. And, because I’m apparently five years old, I giggled when Brendyn called the city attorney a cunt. He wasn’t wrong, but he was British. Sometimes those two things overlap, but not here. 

“I dunno. I’ve gotta go to his office and get an address and key for the property gate. Maybe he’ll have some extra information for me. It’s a whole thing,” I said, shrugging. 

Truth was, I didn’t know what exactly he’d have prepared for me, but I chose to believe it would be thorough and useful. I was putting the power of positive thinking to work so I could get this shit done fast and back to my regular Harbor Warden duties. 

My hope was his wife had just walked out to the water, climbed into a kayak, and left to be with a less piggish man. Hell, if I was being positive, maybe she’d run off a classy lady. Against Harold, I’d root for any imaginary lesbian. It was one of the rules of our team. We cheered for each other. 

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“Well, I hope the case wraps up quickly,” Brendyn said, wiping the counter. 

I finished my last muffin and nodded, pulling out some cash from the wallet in my backpack. 

“Me too, buddy. Me too. Thanks for breakfast,” I said, downing a glass of orange juice he’d poured for free after my staring session. 

My otter friend finished his muffin and hopped down to the floor where he caught the eyes of Chiyo, who was reading Oprah’s biography. She tapped her nails on the table and smiled, eyes briefly glowing red. 

“I always love seeing your friend, Casella. He’s just so cute,” she said, pulling her black hair into a ponytail. 

Tenebrae, for his part, stood up on hind legs just long enough to do a little bow and then headed toward the door. Chiyo laughed and clapped. 

Smiling, I patted Chiyo on the shoulder. Then Tenebrae and I left Dark Side of the Moon behind us, back out into the sunlight, which had been dialed up considerably during breakfast. But, as people from Away are quick to learn if they visit during winter, the sun’s rays can carry all the brightness of a full day, and yet, without an ounce of heat in them. I loved that. It reminded people that appearances could be deceiving. This was a lesson the sea taught us early. 

“I don’t suppose you’d consider dating Chiyo, would you?” Tenebrae asked. If he wasn’t wearing a coat of fur, he’d be visibly blushing. “I wouldn’t mind having her around the house, you know?”

“Trust me, Ten. I wouldn’t mind waking up at her side either. But she doesn’t play for my team,” I said.

A sad sigh slithered through the otter’s teeth as we walked over to Portland City Hall to grab whatever Harold had for me. As expected for 11 a.m., Monument Square was pretty busy, full of traffic of both the foot and vehicle variety. We passed the library, and a clown walked out of the sliding glass doors, already starting the first page of a book way thicker than I’d try to read. 

I fucking love this town, I thought, as Tenebrae looked at me for answers. I just shrugged and we continued. A few people tried to stop us and take a photo with my otter friend, but I waved them off. 

“He’s vicious around strangers, especially kids and other animals. Best back up,” I kept saying. 

People would sigh, and Tenebrae just got more offended each time I told the lie. 

“You know good and well I’ve never fought another animal that wasn’t trying to kill you or me or both of us,” he said, huffing and puffing. 

I chuckled and picked him up, draping the otter around my shoulders, hoping it would lower the number of people trying to stop us for selfies. 

Right before we got to city hall, a man rode by on a scooter and yelled, “I love you, otter lady!” I waved my hand in the air without turning around. 

Turns out the visit to city hall was extremely short. A 20-year-old receptionist with nails painted white saw me walking up the hallway and came out to meet me with a tan folder. 

“He just asked me to give you these and send you on your way,” she said, almost pleading with me to just go. I figured Harold wasn’t exactly in the mood to see me and had taken his frustrations about the whole thing out on this poor girl. So I smiled politely (no teeth) and took the damn thing. 

Walking back outside, I smiled bigger. 

“See, Ten? Quick and painless. And I bet the case will be that way, too,” I said, honestly happy I didn’t have to see that bastard again. 

The folder had some photos of Harold’s wife. She appeared to be in her late 30s and wore her shoulder-length sandy-blonde hair in a fashionable cut. Her eyes were a vibrant blue, and from the look of these pictures, her lips were rarely without some shade of lipstick. The woman had a small mole on her neck, barely visible in these photos. 

Her name was Jaqueline Treskus, and she was a stay-at-home wife. The couple had no kids and were both members of the Cumberland County Country Club, shocker. 

Jaqueline’s phone number and description of what she’d been wearing when Harold last saw her were included in the documents, along with a Cape Elizabeth address and a black and silver gate key. 

Written in neat handwriting on one sheet was a web address to some online file storage site. I plugged it in on my phone and pulled up a security video from their back patio. 

Jaqueline walked down toward the beach with a wine glass and a nice purple jacket. She seemed fine, but the camera wasn’t good enough for me to get a read on her facial expression. The camera also lost sight of her as she left the backyard to walk closer to the water. 

A timestamp in the video showed she’d gone missing the afternoon before Tanya and her brother were taken. 

Harold had already talked to a neighbor, apparently, and jotted down a few notes, the most interesting was about 12 minutes after Jaqueling walked by the camera, someone next door heard a truck backfiring outside. It was loud enough that they jumped and spilled a bowl of chips they were carrying. 

“What are you thinking, Cass?” Tenebrae asked, looking up at me. 

“I think we need to get over there and comb the beach,” I said, calling a ride from my phone. 

Twenty minutes later, I was standing in front of a single-story brick and shingle house on Gould Road. The smell of salt was stronger here than Monument Square, and a southerly wind blew my hair around. A double-car garage with a door designed to look like it was made of wood greeted me as I walked down the driveway. 

I kind of wanted to look inside, but Harold only gave me a key to the gate, which was so low I could have just hopped over it. 

Curved hedges and a white gate merged to protect a small stone path leading into the backyard and down closer to the water. I unlocked and unlatched the gate, which opened with virtually no noise whatsoever. Harold maintained (or paid to maintain) the property well. 

Tenebrae followed me into the backyard, which contained a grill, a wood carving of a beaver, a fire pit, and some very annoying wind chimes, which I happily unhooked and set on the ground next to the back door. 

Looking up, I saw half the patio was covered, and the security camera that caught Jaqueline leaving wasn’t hidden in the least. I waved at the footage I assume Harold was watching now or would be soon. 

Then I walked out toward the beach, following the path Jaqueline had taken. Stepping around some nice patio furniture and descending three flat stone stairs, I peered over the small rocky beach. Jagged earth jutted out toward the water, which, fortunately, had retreated thanks to low tide. 

“She wouldn’t walk barefoot on a rocky beach like this,” I muttered. “But it’s also not the worst spot to launch a kayak.” 

Unfortunately, I found a few things that quickly disproved my kayak theory. First was the stem of a broken wine glass sticking out of the sand. A few steps further, I found a brass shell casing, likely 22 calibers. 

“I’m guessing it wasn’t a truck backfire after all,” I muttered. 

“Well, technically, that could have washed up from anywhere,” Tenebrae said. 

But I took a few steps more and found, hidden in a clump of seaweed, a Walther P22 pistol with red leather grips. Pulling out the magazine, I counted nine rounds, all in the same brass casings. And I knew this particular gun held 10 rounds. 

“What the hell did she shoot at?” I asked, emptying the chamber. 

Above, I heard seagulls cawing and circling the beach. But I paid them no mind. I stood there, realizing this wasn’t going to be a simple case as I’d hoped. And Tenebrae’s find lowered my spirits even more. 

“Cass?” he said, his mouth full. 

I looked up and spotted a chunk of krabbor shell in his teeth, bright red. And I suddenly had a new hypothesis for what Jaqueline had shot at before she was taken. 

“Fuck,” I thought, looking out over the water, my eyes stopping on Cushing Island. 

“What do you think?” Tenebrae asked as I took the piece of krabbor shell from his mouth. 

“I think we have a whole lot of speculation,” I said. “It’s easy to guess Jaqueline was attacked by a krabbor, and she got a shot off at it. But I need to know for sure before I do anything else.” 

Again, the seagulls above us shrieked and danced on the wind. A large wave crashed over the rocks jutting out to my right. 

“How are you going to do that? Didn’t you tell me the camera stopped at the yard’s edge?” Tenebrae asked. 

A seagull landed about 10 feet away and pulled at the clump of seaweed, sending a small green krab scurrying for a new cover. Unfortunately for the crustacean, that seagull was faster and snatched the prey up with its yellow beak. It gave me an idea. 

“Forget the security camera. This beach has hundreds of witnesses that fly over it every day. I just need to know what they saw,” I said. 

Tenebrae followed my gaze to the seagull, flying off with its lunch. 

“Meaning?” my otter friend asked. 

“We need to speak with the Queen of Gulls.” 

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